i©#^ ,. ^-c ■'■■'J' -?> A \ ^ o o ^_^ -^ ^^^^:^/ .y o ^ ■^'^^ 5i - ^^^ " -*-■■ o. .^' . VJ -7" v \^ o o M^ -^^ cy V ,v ^1». •■/ '^vi- o"^ ° ° K^ ^o. * .^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^ -:w.- /\ ^li!- ^^'% ^!^- /% ^. ^^ '\ ,v > ^0 -i °v^ ' ^^"^^^JtMI) * \^ -r , 1 i 1 A o,. ' ^-^^^^^ *■ x^ -r ^^ \ •' ■> v^- V -^ V ' ' f-' _i V 4^ ,-., 'v V^ ^ > • • ' "\> -b' r?7;^ ^ ■■y ^km^ A ^ ^-^'^ v-J^^ ■^0' ^i^i ^0 ^^-^^^ 'i'o .HO, ■° "^^^^ = A'- "H-^^^" •'^^"^■*- ^"-^/ 'A'- %.^^ .■J^* o . » ° -I. ^oV^ XO-T-. .0 c^ 1. '%'i\^/ ,^^ ^. ^' .^ .V '^' ■-^^^ .^"^^ ^^^i^.^ "^^ 0.^^ /i\v;;^ \. J^ y^Si^^ "'^.. ^^ .^^ \.^^ ' .#fe \/' /^'v ^^.^^^ .4«', \. ..^ ^\' -^^ .-^J^: .^ G ■'bv/^. *" ^'^ -^^ wmv ^ <" ^ THE WAR, 1915 III TO ILL BRITIHH 'J ROUPS l.F.AVlNLi FOK THli FKOjMT Drawiug by Septimus E Scott HE WAR, 1915 % 3^i0torg anb an Cjcplanation FOR BOYS AND GIRLS BY ELIZABETH O'NEILL, M.A. AUTHOR OP "THK WORLD'S 8T0RT," BTa A CONTINUATION OF A^'D Cije aiHar, I9i4-i5 NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS NOV 24 my PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. 3 I 1? CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS ..... I II. THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 1 6 III. THE FIERCE STRUGGLE ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT . 26 IV. EGYPT AND THE TURKS 37 V. FIGHTING IN THE PERSIAN GULF . . . .48 VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR THF DARDANELLES . . -55 VII. THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES . . . ,67 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS COLOURED PLATES British Troop Train leaving for the Front . . Frontispiece J Drawing by Septinms E. Scott French Troops (Zouaves and Turcos) driven back BY Poison Gas Facing page 14 / Drawn by Joh^i de G. G' Bryan Russian Troops guarding a Railway .... ,» >. 26^, After the Black and White Drawing by H. W. Koekoek An Action between a British Cruiser and a German Submarine » » 70y' Drawing by A, Chevallier Taylcr BLACK AND WHITE PLATES AND MAPS The Seat of War in the Turkish Empire .... Page ix ./ Map of the Dardanelles and other Approaches to Constantinople „ x • The Capture of the Village of Neuve Chapelle by the British, March 10, 1915 Facing page 7 Drawiitg by F. de Haenen The Canadian Scottish and ioth Infantry retaki- the Guns at Ypres ... ... „ „ 11 ^ Drawing by R. Caion Woodville Germans surrendering to the French at Notre Dame de Lorette, March 15, 1915 . . . „ „ 18 ^ From a Photograph The French attacking after exploding a Land- mine „ „ 22 Drawing by F. Villiers vi: Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Close Trench Fighting at the Village of La Bois- SELLE, NEAR ALBERT Facing ^age Drawing by F. Villi ers A German Battery overwhelmed by an Onslaught OF Russia's most dreaded Cavalry ... „ „ Drawing by J, Simont Russian Infantry and Artillery defending War- saw AT the Battle of the Bzura An Austrian Supply-Train at the Foot of the Carpathians The Turks try to cross the Suez Canal — The Metai Pontoons destroyed by British Guns . Drawing by R. Caion Woodville The British and French Fleets advancing to the Attack of the Dardanelles (' TopicaV Photo) A Modern Battleship firing a Broadside , Drawing by Charles J. de Lacy The Navy's 'Wild Ducks': An Air Raid on the Belgian Coast 25 y 29 "^ 32 36/ 39/ 54 / J THE WAR, 1915 CHAPTER I GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS Perhaps the most interesting part of the Great War in the West at the end of 19 14 was the fighting in Flanders. The terrible fighting, and the brave deeds in the battle for the coast, will never be forgotten. For months after the great struggle round Ypres, the two fronts stretched along the same line, hardly moving at all. And the same thing went on right along the whole western front, which stretched from the coast in Flanders for 500 miles to the Swiss frontier. Everyone felt that the generals were waiting for the spring, when the fighting would be fiercer than ever. But this does not mean that there was no fighting at all. No one knew at what moment the enemy might open artillery fire on any part of the line. One writer who was at the front wrote to the papers that the artillery duel was almost like a game in some parts of the field. When the German batteries began to shell the British trenches, the order was given for the artillery to aim at certain places on the German line. It had been noticed that the Germans always stopped firing when these special places were attacked. Then a great deal of " sniping " went on, when single soldiers from good positions, such as a house or a windmill or barn, would " pick off " and shoot any officer or man who let his head appear above the enemy's trenches. Then, too, there was a great deal of " sapping " — digging tunnels through 2 THE WAR, 1915 to undermine the enemy's tFcnches. When these were safely reached, they were generally blown up. The soldiers, even if they were not fighting, had plenty of hard work to do. Often men were sent out at night to dig trenches quite near the enemy's sentries. Then there were the terrible barbed wire " entanglements," which were so much used in the war, to make and mend. The water which lay in the trenches from the great rains of that very wet winter had to be taken out, and the trenches had to be strengthened in places where it seemed that the earth would fall in. All through the winter the British army was occupying very low and swampy positions, while the Germans facing them occupied fairly high and healthy ground. Not only were the British hampered a great deal by fogs and mists, but there was a very great danger of sickness to troops spending the winter months in such country. But there was, after all, very little sickness. The sanitary arrange- ' ments of the British army were excellent, and the doctors worked splendidly to cure sickness, and, better still, to pre- vent it. The work of the doctors in attending to the sick and wounded during the war cannot be praised enough. Towards the end of January there was some fierce fight- ing along the line near Givenchy (a village standing on an important ridge of land held by the British) and La Bassee. which the Germans still held. On the 25th the Germans m.ade a sharp attack on the English along this line. They managed to cross the front trenches, and some of their infantry got into the village itself. In the narrow village street there was terrible fighting. The English, angry at the taking of their trenches, fought their best, and soon 100 Germans were killed by the bayonet. Still the Germans attacked time after time, and this " hafid-to-hand " fighting went on for hours. At the end of the day the British had won all their positions back. A story was told afterwards of how one English soldier broke into a house where there were eight Germans, killed four, and took the rest prisoners, GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 3 while all the time he was sucking a clay pipe. It was told too, how, in the bombardment before the infantry attack, a piece of railway line weighing 25 lb. was thrown a mile by the bursting of a shell. It fell near some soldiers, but did not hurt anybody. South of the canal at La Bassee there was fierce fighting too on this day, in a district covered with brickfields. Some ground was lost by the British, but it was nearly all won back. The little ground the Germans won was not worth the loss of their men; for in the fighting of this day they had lost a thousand men. Some people thought that this attack was made by the Germans on the 25th, so that the Kaiser might have good news for his birthday, on the 27th January. But there was no good news for him after all. On that day, indeed, the British blew up a house at Messines, which must have con- tained bombs, for when it caught fire there was explosion after explosion. The soldiers thought it was a splendid bonfire for the Kaiser's birthday. On the 29th January, the Germans made an attack in this part of the line, and won some trenches for a time. But the British took these back, and killed every German in them. Once more the Germans lost great numbers of men. Again, on the 7th February, the Germans made a counter-attack in this part of the line, but were beaten back, and for many weeks after- wards there was no fighting there. The men had to bear one of those long periods of waiting which seem much worse than real fighting. Another part of the line in which there was some fierce fighting in the early months of 19 15 was the district near Ypres. No one can forget the terrible struggle for Ypres in the autumn of 19 14, when the Germans were trying to force their way to the coast. In the end Ypres, although it was a mass of ruins, remained in the hands of the British. The Germans, however, still held the high land to the east. Ypres itself lies low, and to the north and north-west of it 4 THE WAR, 191 5 stretches the plain through which the river Yser runs to the sea. The beautiful old town was still shelled from time to time, even so late as the month of May, when each evening some shells were sure to be thrown from the German trenches. The soldiers in Ypres called it the Germans' " Even- ing Hate." (People in England had been very much amused at a picture by a clever artist in Punch showing a German family at their " Morning Hate.") In the fighting south-east of Ypres in the months of February and March, it was the British who attacked while the Germans merely defended themselves. The British bombarded Messines, whose beau- tiful old church had been almost destroyed by the Germans when they bombarded, and took the town in November. The old tower still stood in spite of all the shells and bombs which had struck it. This shows how splendidly built the old churches of Belgium were, and made people hope that there would still be many of these beautiful buildings left, when the Germans should be driven across the Rhine, and Belgium should belong to the Belgians again. For many reasons the great new " offensive " which the Allied Armies were expected to take in the spring was delayed. But all through the first half of the year, both British and French were steadily attacking certain points in the long line, which it was important to weaken before the great " offensive " movement should begin. This steady attack on these points (which often overlooked important railways), has been called General Joffre's " nibbling." But though the great offensive was delayed, a very impor- tant attack was made by the British early in March, when news came to England of the wonderful and terrible battle of Neuve Chapelle. It was the greatest battle on the western front since the battle of the Marne. Neuve Chapelle is a village south of Ypres and west of Lille, and lies on two important roads. It had been taken by the Germans some months before, and at this point the British line was bent inwards. Sir John French decided to GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 5 attack Neuve Chapelle in great force early in March. If the British took it their line would be straightened out, and this is always a good thing. There were other reasons for making a big attack, as Sir John French tells in the despatch describing the battle. There was fierce fighting on the Eastern front at this time, and it seemed that so many German troops had been sent against the Russians that the German line in the West must be weakened. This, therefore, was a good time to attack it. Then, on the other hand, a strong attack in the West would probably help the Russians, as the Germans might be forced to send troops from that front to the West again. The Allies all through the war tried to help each other in this way. But the chief reason which made Sir John French anxious for a real fight was that he wanted to encourage his men after the long weary months of winter, during which they had had little chance to fight. If Sir John French had any doubts about the spirit and courage of his men, he soon had reason to see that they were as keen and brave as ever. The British attack on Neuve Chapelle was splendidly thought out and arranged beforehand, and at first every- thing happened just as Sir John French expected. Afterwards some mistakes were made, and, though the British won Neuve Chapelle, they did not do all that Sir John French had hoped. But whatever fault there was, it was not in the courage of the men, for they fought like heroes. General French had a wonderful plan of battle. He had told it, in the greatest secrecy, to Sir Douglas Haig three weeks before. Sir Douglas Haig was now at the head of the I St Army, and had been moved from the end of the British line near Ypres to this other end at Neuve Chapelle. The ist Army was to take the chief part in the attack, but was to be supported by the 2nd Army under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien. The right of the attacking line was held by the Indians. Tp the centre and left were British regiments of regulars 6 THE WAR, 191 5 and Territorials. Tlie attack was to be made on the morning of the loth March, and the troops were moved quietly up to their positions during the night. Early in the morning, the guns began to roar, for an attack always begins with firing. But there was something extraordinary about the booming of the guns in front of Neuve Chapelle. The roar was deafening and terrific, for orders had been given that great numbers of guns should be got together to shoot fast and furiously. The work of the guns was to kill as many as possible of the Germans in the trenches before the charge forward was made. But they had, too, to break down the immensely strong barbed wire entanglements which the Germans had stretched along the line. In the gaps between the barbed wire fences, machine guns stood ready to fire their terrible quick shots. The British could not advance until the barbed wire was shot down, for neither cavalry nor infantry are of much use against these terrible defences. As the war had gone on, the French and British had become more and more superior in artillery to the Germans, but never before had so many guns been ranged along so small a line. The German trenches were only 70 or 80 yards away from the British, and in a very short time most of the men were killed or wounded. It was said afterwards that the noise of the British guns was like that made by some " gigantic machine gun " shooting without a pause. So overcome were the Germans that they made no attempt to answer the British fire. For the half-hour during which the artillery attack lasted, the men in the British line could walk about quite without danger. Then the firing stopped, and in the sudden silence the order was given to charge. But the silence was short, for the guns now boomed forth again, shooting now no longer at the trenches, but at Neuve Chapelle itself. In the greater part of the line of trenches, the British attack was hardly resisted. The trenches themselves had been churned up by the terrific fire, and dead and dying lay GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 7 half buried in the soft earth. The overpowering smell of powder and exploded shell hung over everything. The few Germans who remained unhurt could not run, for behind them the shells were falling thick and fast on Neuve Chapelle. Most of them were quite glad to give themselves up as prisoners, but even now some of the officers could not bear to give in. Two of them went on working a machine gun, although they knew that they must die if they would not give themselves up. They preferred to die, and worked their guns until they fell. So far all had gone well for the British — at least, on the centre and right of the line. The centre pressed forward to fight in Neuve Chapelle itself, while the Indians to the right pushed forward, past the village to the forest of Biez, which lay beyond it. But a terrible thing had happened to the left of the line. Here the barbed wire fences had not been properly broken down by the guns, and when the charge was made the men dashed upon these trying to break their way through while the Germans turned their machine-guns upon them, firing their 660 shots a minute. The Middlesex Regiment, and the Scottish Rifles suffered terrible losses, but dashed again and again against the wire. Through the cutting of telephone wires and other communications, it was a long time before a message could be sent to the artillery to tell what had happened. But at last, it did get through. The infantry were drawn back while the guns turned again on to the barbed wire, and this time broke it down com- pletely. Meanwhile, Germans and British were fighting hand to hand in the streets of Neuve Chapelle. Once again the British guns were throwing a shower of shells beyond the village, so that fresh German troops could not be brought up to help to defend the town. In Neuve Chapelle many Germans gave themselves up, but those who could find shelter in the houses half-ruined by the guns fought hard, shooting from windows and roofs. After desperate fighting, III B 8 THE WAR, 1915 the town, although almost a heap of ruins, was won by the British. It was told how, above the mass of dust and brick and stone, two great crucifixes still stood, one in the church- yard, and one near the chateau. One reason for which Sir John French had wished to take Neuve Chapelle was to gain possession of the high ridge of land beyond it, from which a new attack might be made, and a big advance made towards the important town of Lille. If Lille were taken, the Germans' communication by rail would be interrupted at an important point. Neuve Chapelle was taken before mid-day, and a farther advance should have been made at once before the Germans had time to reform. This was Sir John French's plan, and Sir Douglas Haig had given orders for this to be done. But some mistake was made in the carrying out of the orders, and several hours passed before the advance was actually made. The Germans had time to form up and bring up reinforcements on the Aubers ridge, which would otherwise have been easily taken by the British. On the next day, nth March, the British began the attack again, but already the Germans had made their line very strong. Artillery had to be used again, but it was a foggy day, and the artillery officers could not see when the infantry had reached any point. Often they still went on shelling a position which had already been won by their own side. The only thing the infantry could do was to draw back. This was very hard for them, and it must be said that Sir John French's splendid plan had had very bad luck against it. Still if he did not win all he had hoped for, he did win a great deal. In the two days' fighting the line had been pushed forward for nearly a mile along a front of 2 J miles. This may not seem a very great gain, but we have to remember that the Allied armies, when they fought and won ground like this, were not trying to push the Germans back by degrees to their own land. They hoped they would go back very quickly indeed in the end. But these small gains of ground were important, first, because they raised the GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 9 spirit of the men. The British troops were full of spirit before the battle, but afterwards they were more enthusiastic than ever. The success was important too, because every victory of this sort, in which the Germans lost many more men than the Allies, made the German army weaker. In this war hardly anyone hoped to win any single great battle which would end the war, just as the battle of Waterloo ended the Napoleonic wars. The war would end only when one side had become too weak to go on with it, and each victory like that at Neuve Chapelle meant that the time was coming nearer when Germany would be too weak to fight any longer. On the 1 2th March, the Germans began their counter- attack. This always happens in modern war where the armies are defending important positions. When one side has gained ground, the side which has been pushed back makes a great effort to win it back, and so makes the strongest attack it can in return. Again, on the 12th March, the Germans had the weather in their favour. The British artillery could not see where to shoot because of the fog, and so the Germans were able to bring up many more men than they could have done if the weather had been fine. And when the enemy began to move forward in the close formation which the Germans always use, the artillery could not always see which were the British and which the German troops. Even so the German counter-attack was a failure. Once more great numbers were killed and wounded. It was told afterwards that the German officers had driven them to the attack with whips. Many of the men were quite tired out, and, though some fought bravely, many others held up their hands to show that they were willing to give themselves up as prisoners. At the end of the day the Germans had not been able to push the British back at all, and so the counter-attack came to an end. The British, too, were completely worn out, though the fact that they were winning had kept them up. During the lo THE WAR, 19 1 5 next two days fresh men were sent to take the places of those who had been in the fighting line. Some of them were so worn out that they were found standing up asleep in their trenches. The German soldiers, and especially the officers at Neuve Chapelle, were very much surprised and very angry to find for once greater numbers of men and guns against them than they had themselves. One officer, who was taking prisoner, said that it was *' not war, but murder." He forgot the many fights in which the Germans had had many more guns and men than the Allies. The British felt especially pleased because the men whom they drove out of Neuve Chapelle belonged to the same army corps which had taken the village from them four and a half months before. After all this terrible fighting, the long straggling village looked like a great rubbish heap, with a part of a house still standing here and there. Two days after their first counter-attack was made, the Germans made another attack on the British line at the village of St. Eloi about two miles south of Ypres. The reason for this attack was that the Germans probably thought that this part of the line would be weaker as so many men had been got together at Neuve Chapelle. The attack was made in the late afternoon, and the British were, as the Germans hoped, taken by surprise. A sudden artillery attack was made on the trenches outside St. Eloi, and on a mound which ran partly round the village, and which made a splendid defence. The German sappers had worked hard, and the mound was undermined and suddenly blown up. Great masses of soil were thrown into the air, and as the Germans had hoped there was some confusion in the front lines. The attack had been helped by the fact that there was a thick mist, and the Germans had been able to prepare their attack without the British knowing. Parts of the first line of trenches were taken, and the Germans thought they were quite safe for the night as darkness soon came on. But the British did not give in so readily. More men were GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS ii brought quietly up, and in the pitch darkness at two o'clock in the morning they rushed on the part of the village and the lost trenches, and won them back at the point of the bayonet. Already, in the few hours the Germans had been in the village, they had put barricades defended by machine guns across the streets they had taken, and the fighting to break these down was terribly fierce. The worst fighting in the war was this fighting — ^almost from house to house in the narrow streets of the French and Belgian villages. The Germans tried again three days later, but could not capture the trenches again. During all this fighting the airmen, as usual, did splendid work. They did their usual reconnaissance work to direct the artillery where to shoot, and sometimes, because of the fog, had to fly as low as 800 feet. It is, of course, much more dangerous for an airman to fly low than high, because he can be more readily shot at by the enemy. During the fighting, too, they dropped bombs on the railway junctions at Don and Douai, which probably did a great deal of damage. These were important points, through which the Germans had to send men and supplies. Anything which delayed or prevented this was a great help to the Allies. On the 26th April British airmen destroyed the railway station at Courtrai, and did much damage on several railway lines. For a month after the fighting at Neuve Chapelle and St. Eloi, nothing very important happened in Flanders. Then the Germans became active again in the district near Ypres ; news came that on the 20th April they had begun a great attack on the French line north of Ypres. This was the part of the line just to the left of where the British stood. The attack began with a very heavy bombardment, In which once more the Germans broke the rules of war, and this time it was in a very terrible way. They brought into their trenches large quantities of a poisonous gas, and they allowed this to escape when the wind was blowing towards where the French stood. As the cloud of poisonous gas 12 THE WAR, 1915 came near, the French soldiers fell choking to the ground, where they lay unconscious. Some of them died from the effect of the gases, and all who breathed the gases were made dreadfully ill, and had to be in hospital for weeks. It was easy for the Germans to press forward when they had done this terrible thing, and the French had to fall back to the canal behind. The Germans themselves were protected by pads soaked in certain chemicals and tied over their noses and mouths. Afterwards the Germans said that the Allies had used the poisonous gases first, but this was not true. Immediately great numbers of respirators were sent to the front. The soldiers wore these over the nose and mouth, and so were protected to some extent against the gases, which the Germans went on using. The Allies felt that the only thing to do was to tell the Germans that they would also use these gases if they continued to do so, and the French soon found it necessary to do so. Not only the French, but the British who were to the right of them, north of Ypres, suffered from the poisonous gases from the German shells. Some of the brave Canadians who had come over from their own land to fight for the Mother Country were in this part of the line. When the French had to fall back before the horrible gases, the Canadians had to fall back too, leaving four 4.7-inch guns behind them. Good soldiers hate to lose their guns, and the Canadians made up their minds to win theirs back at all costs. Two days later, they did so after a splendid fight. The four British guns had been left behind in a wood, and the Canadians made up their minds to gain possession of the wood again. They made their attack at night, with the moon shining faintly through a mist, and, though the machine guns played upon them " like a watering pot,'* as one of them said, the Canadians fought desperately at the point of the bayonet. Many of them fell, killed and wounded, but the others pressed on, pushing the Germans back. They soon held GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 13 the wood, and dug themselves in at the other side. All night fighting was going on along the three-mile line held by the Canadians and the French line to their left. Early in the morning the Canadian left was in a very dangerous position, as the French lines against which the poisonous gases had been used had been pushed far back. It was decided that the Canadians should try to relieve the French, and make their own position better by making a counter- attack on the front line of German trenches. The ist and 4th Ontario Battalions of the ist Brigade were chosen with a British brigade to make the attack. As soon as they began to go forward, a terrible shower of shot and shell fell upon them. The 4th Canadian Battalion especially suffered terribly. The guns fired full upon them from the front as they advanced. Every fourth man fell, and for a moment the line wavered as though it would fall back. But the brave officer commanding the battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Burchill, still advanced coolly, carrying in his hand nothing but a light cane. This is an old fashion for officers, as though to show their supreme courage. The men rallied, but the heroic officer fell, shot dead. His men needed no further cheering. With a cry of anger they rushed forward to avenge the officer they had loved. The Germans fell back, and the trench was taken. It was held, too, for several days against attack after attack while fierce fighting went on along the line. The Canadians had saved not only their own left, but had done much to save the whole Allied line in this district. The Canadian soldiers have shown themselves brave to a fault. A German officer, writing of them, told how these " god-like fools,'* when ordered in one place to retire, refused to crawl back as experienced soldiers would have done, but " strolled " back laughing and smoking cigarettes. The Germans were trying their best in this new " offen- sive " to break the Allied line, but they failed completely. Although the German people still hoped for a real victory. 14 THE WAR, 1915 the German commanders knew that this could never be. As time went on, more and more advantage lay with the Allies. But they thought that if they could only break the line the Allies might make peace, and say that the war had resulted in a " draw " — that is, that both sides were equal. If they did not manage to do this they would have lost many men, and not gained any advantage. Germany could not really afford to lose men now, for she was using her last reserves. The day after the Canadians won back their guns, the Germans made fierce attacks on the British line at Ypres, but were driven back again and again. The next day the British made a counter-attack, and two days later the Germans quite stopped their attacks in this part of the line. But hardly a week had passed before the Germans were making a new attack at a part of the British lines a little to the south-east of Ypres. Here stood the famous " Hill 60," which was so much talked about at this time. The hill had, of course, a proper name of its own, but on the maps which the commanding officers used in arranging their plans it was just " Hill 60." There had been a great deal of fighting for Hill 60 throughout the winter. It was an important point overlooking the railway from Ypres to Comines, and from it gun-fire could sweep the ground a long way to the north. Both sides were very anxious to have the hill, and there was very fierce fighting there in the middle of February, during which, however, the Germans managed to keep their hold on the hill. On the evening of the 17th April, a Saturday, the British made a determined attack on the hill. The sappers had undermined some of the trenches where the Germans were, and a length of trench containing 150 men was blown up. Nearly all the men were killed. Immediately after the explosion the British rushed forward, and won 250 yards of trench at the point of the bayonet. The Germans were so taken by surprise that they hardly resisted at all, but all GREAT BATTLES IN FLANDERS 15 through the night they kept firing on the lost positions, hoping to win them back. The British, however, dug themselves in deeper, and strengthened their positions as fast as they could. At seven o'clock on Sunday morning, a real counter- attack was made, the Germans advancing in great numbers and in their usual close formation. There was a great deal of fierce hand-to-hand fighting, and the infantry were greatly helped by some motor machine guns which rushed up and poured fire into the advancing Germans. The Germans lost heavily and won nothing, but all day they kept up their attacks. Towards evening they managed to get a position on the south side of the hill, but were driven off at the point of the bayonet. The counter-attack failed completely. The British had won the hill and meant to keep it. The British naturally lost many men in such hard and close fighting, but the Germans lost many more. The writer who signs himself *' Eye-witness," and who gave such splendid accounts of the battles throughout the war in the English newspapers, said that after the victory there was much less sickness among the British troops than ever before. The spirits of the men were so raised, that it had a good effect upon their health. The Germans were so angry at losing this strong position, that it was to be expected they would make another attack. The line of the British trenches was firmly established on the hill when early in May the Germans made an attack on them, and this time, using poisonous gases, managed to take some of the trenches. Again the fighting was terribly fierce, and in a few days the hill had almost disappeared. The position, such as it was, remained in the hands of the Germans. Again, on the 25th May, the Germans attacked with their gases along a line of five miles at Ypres ; but the Allies were now prepared for them, and they were driven back once more. Their new offensive in the West had ended in com- plete failure. CHAPTER II THE HEROISM OF FRANCE The people and the children of Great Britain have naturally been chiefly interested in those battles during the war in which our own brave soldiers have taken part. But we must remember that, after all, the British army stretched along only a short length of the 500 mile front in the West. To the north, still keeping the Germans from crossing the Yser, were the Belgians, and to the south of them some French divisions. Joining on to these were the English, holding the line from north of Ypres down to La Bassee. South of this stretched the long line of the French armies right to the borders of Switzerland. The story of the French fighting is very fine. Before the war, and even after it had begun, some people thought that perhaps the French would not fight so well as the other nations. The French have been so interested in art and literature, and all sorts of learning and science, that some people thought they would make very poor soldiers. But the French soldiers have been brave and gallant fighters all through history, and this war was to show that they were as heroic as ever. It is difficult for people in England to understand how terribly France suffered from the war. The Germans had overrun a great part of Northern France, and the people there suffered the same terrible cruelties which had been committed against the Belgians. Every Frenchman of the right age and strong enough was at the front. Trade was naturally bad with all the best workers gone, and before long France was filled with terrible sorrow. Nearly every family 16 THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 17 had lost a father, or brother or son, in the terrible struggle. But the French bore all this, and faced their trial with the most wonderful courage. The men in the trenches and the women at home were equally brave. As time went on, too, people respected and loved General Joffre more and more. He was like a father to his men, and never passed one without some word, of greeting. But he was immensely clever as well as kind, and he was brave in the very best way. He had the courage to confess the faults of the French army of which he was in conmiand, and he had the cleverness to see how to correct them. Early in 19 15 an official *' retrospect " of the war was published in France. In this General Joffre told quite plainly that there had been many things wrong with the French army when the war began. All through the winter he had been busy putting these things right. Perhaps the thing which best shows his courage was his replacing many of the older generals, who were often his personal friends, by younger men, who were much fresher in mind and body, and much better able to lead the men in battle. Everyone remembers how, at the very beginning of the war, the French invaded Alsace, but were driven back. This failure was due to the bad leadership of the general in command, and General Joffre took his conmiand from him. Only a few days after the failure in Alsace the French army which had invaded Lorraine was badly defeated at Morhange. Here again all sorts of mistakes had been made by the officers in high command. In some cases the men were ordered to charge without the way being prepared by an artillery attack. To go forward meant certain death to all, and some of the junior officers refused to pass on the orders to their men. Everyone remembers how the French army and the British to the left of them, in the " Great Retreat " fell back to within twenty miles of Paris, and how in the second week of September the Allies won the great victory of the Marne, 1 8 THE WAR, 191 5 after which the Germans fell back to the strong positions on the river Aisne, where they were to stay so many months. But it must be remembered, too, that if the south-eastern end of the French line had given way, Paris might not have been saved after all, but would have been reached from the east. Just as the *' Great Retreat " prevented the Germans' outflanking movement at the north-west end of the Allied line, so the splendid defence of the strongly fortified town of Nancy defeated the outflanking movement on the east. The Army of Nancy was under the command of General Castelnau, one of the greatest and best of the French generals. After the French defeat in Lorraine the Germans got ready to invade France from the east. At that time Ger- many had plenty of men to spare, for she was, of course, mobilizing before any of the other countries. Two big divisions moved, one from Metz and one from Zabern, towards Nancy. Two others, starting from Strassburg, moved one towards Luneville, south-east of Nancy, and one towards Epinal, still farther south. Luneville was soon occupied by the Germans, but the most terrible fighting went on in the district to the south. A dreadful thing happened in a splendid attack which the French made on the Germans entrenched on high ground near the river Montague at Gerbeviller. The Germans had three rows of trenches, the last on the edge of a wood, and the French were to attack these. It was arranged that they should be helped by heavy guns bombarding the wood. There was a thick fog, and the regiment which was to do the work charged through it, took the Germans by surprise, and bayoneted every soldier in the first trench. Then they rushed on to the second, and took this too, and on again to the trench in front of the wood. Just then the French artillery opened fire, never dreaming that their own men had already reached the wood. The brave men fell, killed and wounded by shells from their own guns. These terrible accidents, when men have been shot down by their own guns, happened THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 19 several times during the war. The Frenchmen had to fall back from the position they had won so splendidly, and there was no chance of taking it again just then. But even then, resisting great numbers of Germans, the regiment dug Itself in a few hundred yards from the front trench, instead of being driven back across the river, as might have been ex- pected. The little town of Gerbeviller, near which this sad thing happened, was to suffer dreadfully from the German attack. The river Montague runs through the town, cutting it in two. Two bridges cross the river, joining the two parts. There were just seventy of the famous French Chasseurs Alpins to prevent a whole regiment of Germans from crossing the bridges. These seventy held them well, and it was seventeen hours before the Germans got across at last. They had thought that there were many more French soldiers against them. The Chasseurs had ridden on bicycles from place to place in the town, firing from so many places that the Germans naturally thought there were many soldiers against them. When they found just these seventy, they declared that the people of the town must have been firing. The same treatment was given to the people of Gerbeviller as had been given to so many Belgians. Many people were shot, and the houses were burned, after being sprayed with petroleum to make them burn better. Only the chateau, which had been turned into a hospital, and the few houses near It, were spared. This was not through any mercy from the Germans, but simply through the brave and firm way in which the nun in charge of the hospital, Soeur Julie, acted. She told the German officers that they had no business to act as they had done, and they agreed to spare the hospital, but looked at every man In bed to see that he was really wounded. They meant to set fire to the rest of the street, but Sceur Julie said that this would set fire to the hospital too, and so they spared this, at least. Later the Germans sent their wounded also to be nursed at the hospital — ^whlch, 20 THE WAR, 19 1 5 ScEur Julie confessed, was " a hard trial to Christian charity, but we did it." Later the brave nun was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour by the French President. But it was far more important for the Germans to succeed at Nancy. This town is surrounded to the east by a semi- circle of hills known as the " Grande Couronne " or " Great Crown '* of Nancy. During the last few years the French have been building fortifications on these hills. Before this, for forty years after the peace made in 1870, they had not been able to build any fortifications near the frontier. For- tunately they had worked well at the fortifications in these few years. The hills of the Great Crown are at distances of from about ten to sixteen miles from Nancy, and it was against this that two columns of German soldiers marched from Metz, while a third came up from Luneville after the taking of that place. Great guns were brought up from Metz, for the bombard- ment, but the French hid their own guns very cleverly on the heights, and the big German guns which would have wrecked them never found out where they were. The German infantry advanced in their close ranks time after time, but were always driven back. Their losses in killed and wounded were enormous. On the plateau of Amance alone, where the fighting was particularly fierce, the Germans lost 20,000 men. Never for a moment did the Germans succeed in getting a position on any of the hills of the " Great Crown of Nancy.'* The attack in August was a complete failure, and General Castelnau made a counter- attack, driving back two columns across the river Seille towards Metz, while the third column fell back to Luneville. Again, at the beginning of September, a new attack was made, and this time a very distinguished German regiment, the White Cuirassiers of the Imperial Guard, was brought to the attack, but failed. The French, in fact, began to ad- vance, and the Germans withdrew from Luneville. The Battle of the Marne had just put an end to the German THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 21 hope of advancing directly upon Paris, and the splendid defence by General Castelnau of the Great Crown of Nancy saved Paris from any advance upon her from the south-east. It was a pity that General Joffre had not more men to go on with a real offensive at this end of the line after the great French victory at Nancy. If there had been more men, the army might have moved up northwards, attacked the Germans besieging Verdun, and even prevented the Germans from entrenching themselves for the winter in Champagne. Then, just at the time when Sir John French was moving up his troops from the Aisne to Flanders to attack the German right, this blow might have been struck at the German left, and the whole story of the war might have been cahnged. But this was not to be. The French had wasted too many men in the invasion of Lorraine, and the army needed the reorganization which General Joffre gave to it in the winter months. Instead of following up their success at Nancy, the French were not in a position to prevent the Germans taking St. Mihiel and other positions on the hills near the river Meuse, where they made a great wedge half-way between Nancy and Verdun. Many months were to pass before the French again began to make progress in this region, but meanwhile General Joffre had improved and strengthened his army, and the French nation had done its best to help him. Besides replacing old and worn-out officers by new and fresher men. General Joffre took steps to get more soldiers. All men between the ages of 25 and 47 years were called up. As France has conscription, these men were, of course, already trained. Then, too, the young men who would not have been called up for their military training until 19 15 were summoned for training, and were learning to be good soldiers already by Christmas 19 14. In this way there were a million more men ready to join the French army at the front in the spring. There was every hope that the British army in France would by that time have reached a million 22 THE WAR, 1915 men too. But General Joffre knew that ammunition is as important in modern warfare as even men can be, and already in the winter great preparations were made for the manufac- ture of more guns and ammunition. Every factory that was in any way suitable for their manufacture was called upon to help, and every week new batteries were sent out to the French army at the front. The French were making up as quickly as possible for not having been prepared, like the Germans, for war. It was three or four months later that the people in Great Britain, roused by Lord Kitchener's appeals, began to understand how important it was that everybody who could should help in the manufacture of ammunition. Another great task which the French cheerfully set about in the winter months of waiting was the improvement and rearrangement of their fortresses. They had learned from the sieges of the great Belgian forts, Liege and Namur, which, though so strong, had fallen before the German attacks, that the most important thing was to hide the guns and make them easily movable from place to place. Also they had learned that a fortress should always have a good army in the field before it to keep the enemy from closing right in on the fortress with heavy fire, as had been done in Belgium. The French had learned these lessons like everyone else, but the wonderful thing was the way in which they began to act on them. The fortifications at Verdun were altered completely, and there was never any danger of that fortress falling before the attacks of the enemy. The result of General Joffre 's work was seen in the success along the French front all through the spring. All along the line in Champagne, the Vosges, the Argonne, and Alsace and Lorraine, the French communiques almost constantly report progress in the first five months of the year. Steadily General Joffre was " nibbling '* away, gaining good positions and pushing the French line steadily forward. The gain was not so much in this advance of the line as in the winning ■f'. .■i. ' '\ , f^i .*r, ■■■' 3 P •-1 1 * f ■■ f I THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 23 of these strong points, and in the constant loss of men which the French successes meant for the Germans. Yet in January the fighting near Soissons, where the French attacked the Germans in the positions they had taken on the Aisne, went badly for the French. Early in January the French entrenched on the bank of the Aisne opposite to Soissons began cheerfully to attack the Germans entrenched on the hills in front of them. At first all went well. They won " Hill 132," and got a footing on the plateau beyond. From there they might have taken the important railway junction at Anizy. If they could have done so they would have so interrupted the German supplies that the enemy would have had to fall back many miles. General von Kluck, one of the cleverest of the German generals, was in command of this part of the German line, and he immedi- ately brought up strong reinforcements to attack the French. Two Army Corps, or 80,000 men, were thrown against the 12,000 Frenchmen, and they got ready not only to push the French back down the hill, which they were able to do easily with so many men, but also to push them back across the Aisne. The German reinforcements had been brought up as usual by train, for the Germans made excellent use of the railways throughout the war. The French could not be reinforced because of the sudden storms which flooded the Aisne, and broke the bridges down. All through the night of the 12th January the French engineers worked desperately with their feet frozen, to re- place the bridges, and by morning one bridge was finished. Men and ammunition w^ere hurried across, but in a short time the bridge was swept away again. The little band of Frenchmen cut off in this way charged up the hill again and again against the great army of Germans. Time after time they were driven back, but, even then, held their positions while the bridges were repaired. A single battery kept the Germans back while the retreat was made in order. The young oflicer in charge of it fired his last shell as the last III C 24 THE WAR, 191 5 of the French troops crossed the river. His arm was broken, but he coolly stood to make his guns useless to the enemy before the Germans had time to take them. Some of the Germans crossed by bridges higher up the river, and got into the outer part of Soissons ; but they were driven out, and the enemy was never able, as General von Kluck had probably hoped, to push their line across the river. The French had really pushed forward too quickly and with too few men. The line remained as it was for many months at Soissons, but in other parts of the French front much progress was made. In February, for instance, great progress was made in the district near Reims. The bombardment of the beautiful old Cathedral had gone on steadily through the winter. It was bombarded for eighty days without a day being missed. In the part of Champagne east of Reims the French began a strong offensive ; and especially near Perthes, a little to\\Ti half-way between Reims and Verdun, there was very fierce fighting. In three weeks the French advanced along a line of about half a mile, a distance of from two hundred yards to three-quarters of a mile. The losses on both sides must have been from 50,000 to 60,000 in killed and wounded. Already early in January the French had begun to push forward their line to the south-east of Verdun, especially in the Vosges Mountains and Alsace, and they were successful. On the 4th January the Alsatian town of Steinbach was taken after twelve days' fighting. A little more than a month later the French got possession of Hill 937 in the Vosges. On the 5th March the French communique announced pro- gress nearly along the whole front, but especially north of Arras, in Champagne, and in the Argonne. On the 27th March the French, after hard fighting through many days, won the height of Hartmannsweilerkojf^ an important spur of the Vosges mountains stretching out towards Mulhausen. It will be remembered how the French took and lost Mul- hausen in the early days of the war. The advance into THE HEROISM OF FRANCE 25 Alsace in August had been too rapid, and was bound to fail, but now Alsace was being gradually but securely won back to France. It was told afterwards how the French advanced and seized the positions on the height of Hart- mannsweilerkoff only ten minutes after the guns had ceased to prepare the way for their advance. It shows the spirit with which the French soldiers were fighting. All through April and May the advance went on in Alsace and near St. Mihiel, where the Germans had driven in a wedge between Verdun and Nancy in September. Along both lines forming the sides of this wedge the French attacked, pushing the Germans back and repulsing their counter-attacks with great slaughter. At Eparges to the north of St. Mihiel, where the French attacked a ridge, the fighting was especially fierce, and in two months the Germans lost 30,000 men. The story of General Joffre's " nibbling " tactics is, then, one of success. The French no longer attempted rapid in- vasion of enemy territory, like the invasion of Alsace and Lorraine at the beginning of the war. General Joffre's " nibbling " was a surer plan. It attacked the enemy in the weakest spot. The Germans had had greater numbers than the Allies in the earlier battles of the war, but now the Allies were often in greater numbers, and General Joffre's strategy made the Germans waste more and more men. This is really the only way in which a victory can be gained in modern warfare. No one great battle can decide the victory, as in past wars. The battle fronts are too long, and men can be moved more easily from place to place. The victory must be won by " wearing down " the enemy and exhausting his men and material. This has been called a process of *' attrition," which means " wearing down." General Joffre's " nibbling " has helped much in the progress ; and though the French pushed their line forward slowly, it was a steady advance, and the method was bringing the time nearer when there would no longer be this slow movement, but when the Germans would go back with a rush to their own land. CHAPTER III THE FIERCE STRUGGLE ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT While the Germans had been repulsed all along the Western front, great things had been happening on the Russian front. Everyone will remember how the Germans had hoped to spend Christmas in Warsaw, and how the Russians had kept them back. At the New Year the Russian line in Poland, south of the Vistula, stood firm and strong, and there was little chance of the Germans breaking it. To the north the line stretched to where the extreme right lay in East Prussia, the German soil of the Kaiser's " beloved " province, from which he was most anxious to drive it. The Germans had a strong defence in the line of lakes and marshy lands, where the Russians had suffered so badly after their first triumphant march into East Prussia at the beginning of the war. But to the north of this a Russian army was pre- paring to advance to Tilsit. In the southern part of the line the Russians had occupied Bukowina, the most easterly part of the Austrian territory, and were ready to advance through the Carpathian passes into Hungary. It will be remembered how they had flung the Austrians back through these passes when they tried to outflank them in December, and so prevent the Russians advancing into Silesia, the heart of industrial Germany. During the whole war Germany had hoped to drive back the whole Russian line, and so be able to entrench themselves in front of the San, the Vistula, and the Niemen, but they had never been able to do it. They had, however, won several big battles against the Russians, and they hoped to win more, until Russia should be weary of the war. 26 O ^, 21 i THE RUSSIAN FRONT 27 They prepared for one of these battles at the end of January, and succeeded at length a second time in pushing the Russians out of East Prussia and back from the frontier. At the same time it was necessary to push back the Russian line, which lay farther south, near the southern frontier of East Prussia. If these had not been attacked, they would have been able to attack the right flank of the German army, which was pushing back the Russian right from East Prussia. But it was against this northern part of the Russian line that the great attack was made. The Germans once more used the splendid railways of East Prussia, which had been built long before the war, and which were really very little used in times of peace, but had been built for time of war. Large numbers of men were brought up by train. One corps was brought right across from the Western front, which was not, however, weakened, for another corps from Germany was sent to take its place. Other troops were brought up from the south of the Vistula, where the Germans had for the time given up hope of breaking through to Warsaw. Two corps of newly-trained youths were also brought up. All this was done very quietly to surprise the Russians. One regiment of the corps brought from the Western front, was even left behind, so that the Allies on the West should not guess that the corps had gone, and so warn the Russians. It was not until the 4th February, a week after the corps had left the Western front, that the Russians guessed that special preparations were being made against them in this part of the line. On the 7th February the attack began. The Russians, with such great odds against them, had no chance of resisting the attack. They were bound to fall back. On the extreme right especially the Germans, trying to outflank them, pressed hard against them. The safest thing to do would have been for the 3rd Corps on the extreme Russian right to fall back in a south-easterly direc- tion, avoiding the outflanking movement, and keeping in touch with the other corps of the loth Russian Army, of 28 THE WAR, 19 1 5 which they formed a part. But General Sievers, who com- manded the loth Army, gave different orders. The 3rd Corps drew off more and more to the north-east, and lost touch with the corps to the south of them. Even the Germans had not hoped for such good luck. Not only did they out- flank, but were able to surround, the 20th corps, which lay farther south, on the 13th February. The corps fought on as it retired. Parts of it were still fighting on the 22nd February. At first it was thought that only a few men of the whole corps had come safely out, but in the end parts of two regiments rejoined the Russian line, having fought their way for twelve days, along a distance of sixty miles, with the Germans attacking them all the time. One of the great qualities of the Russian soldiers is their endurance. The two corps to the south of the 20th Corps were also in great danger, but they held well together, and fell back safely across the Niemen. They lost many men, for their retreat was hampered by the deep snow which lay on the ground, and made it impossible to use motors for transport. The retreat took ten days, instead of the four in which it a could have been made but for the snow. The defeat of the loth Army was a real success for the Germans. It was made possible by the poor generalship of Baron Sievers, and the story was told that the Grand Duke Nicholas reproved the General for the way in which he had conducted the retreat. The Russian line to the south, along the rivers Narew and Bobr, which are joined by canal to the Niemen, was attacked at the same time as the loth Army. This was necessary, as otherwise the Russians would have been able to hamper the Germans advancing from East Prussia. But the attacks on this part of the line were not very fierce, and the Germans did not cross the rivers, except the Niemen at one point north-west of Grodno, from which they were quickly driven back again. In one part of the line, however, there was fierce fighting. t- R THE RUSSIAN FRONT 29 This was between Mlawa, a town quite near the frontier of East Prussia, and Ostrolenka. Here, by the same tactics by which they had surrounded the 20th Corps, the Germans now surrounded the village of Przasnysz. But this time the Russians made a splendid counter-attack, which began on the 24th February. They attacked the positions on the little river Orzic, along which the Germans had made a stand to protect the left of the German line south of Przasnysz. By the evening of the 24th, after a day's hard fighting, they had pushed the Germans back and crossed the river. All through the day on the 25th the fight went on south of Przasnysz, until the Germans fell back to the village. The next day the Russians, advancing to the north-east, attacked the village, and took it by the evening. During the night the Germans drove them out, but on the 27th the Russians got the village once more, and the Germans fell back over the frontier. The Germans had boasted that they had taken 10,000 prisoners and 20 guns in the first few days' fighting in this part of the line, but they themselves left 10,000 prisoners in their retreat. Some people thought that if the Germans had been really successful here they might have advanced on Warsaw from the north-east, as they had failed over and over again to reach it from the west. But it is not really likely that they hoped to do this. The Russians had saved themselves splendidly at Przasnysz, but Germany had driven the in- vaders for a second time from East Prussia. Before many weeks the Russians had pushed their right well forward again, and regained about one-third of the distance between the river Niemen and the East Prussian frontier. Meanwhile important things were happening in other parts of the Russian front. In the first few days of the New Year the Russians advanced rapidly through Bukowina, and on 6th had reached the frontiers of Hungary, capturing 1000 Austrians. About the same time, and perhaps to make the Russians draw off men from this part of the 30 THE WAR, 19 15 line, the Germans began a strong attack on the Russian line in front of Warsaw, which was only 30 miles from the town. They had tried so often to reach Warsaw, and now they began a new method of attack, sapping and mining the ground desperately, and carrying steel shields before them as they advanced. But once more the attack failed. At the same time the Russians were advancing through the Carpathian passes towards Hungary. The Austrians began to mass troops in Bukowina in the last week of January, and succeeded in stopping their advance into Hungary. The Austrians were strengthened by German troops, and made a very determined attack, and the Russians fell back out of Bukowina in the next few weeks. But in Galicia, where also a severe attack was made on them, and in the passes of the Carpathians, they had success after success, capturing thousands of Germans and Austrians, and taldng many guns. Again, early in February, the Germans began a new attack on Warsaw, where a tremendous battle was fought. As before, the Russians drove the enemy back, killing and wounding *' tens of thousands " of men. All through February, and on into March, the Russians had to report victories in the Carpathians and Galicia. One victory was won in the Carpathians on the 7th February, and it was reported that it was won " after a long bayonet fight without precedent in history. All the mountain slopes were strewn with dead." This expression comes over and over again in the reports of the Russian victories. All through the winter the Austrians had suffered terribly in holding the snow-covered passes of the Carpathians, through which the Austrians were constantly trying to relieve Przemysl. The transport over the mountain passes in the winter months was very difficult, and the wounded suffered terribly. General Brussiloff, who was in charge of this part of the Russian line, was content to remain on the other side of the mountains, well in touch with the railway. When the Austrian attacks THE RUSSIAN FRONT 31 weakened, he pushed his artillery forward, and bombarded the entrance to the mountain passes. The numbers engaged in these battles on the Russian front were much larger as a rule than those on the West. Both Germans and Russians report the taking of thousands of prisoners. For instance, in three days at the end of January the Russians captured in Galicia 60 officers and 2400 men, taking at the same time 3 guns and 10 machine guns, and again at the beginning of March, they took in Eastern Galicia 6000 prisoners, 64 officers, and several guns. Then on the 22nd March, Przemysl fell at last. It will be remembered how this strongly fortified town had been " masked," or invested by the Russians ever since September. For six months it had held out (having been relieved once in the middle of October, when the Russians fell back for a short time), and when it fell it seemed to the Russian soldiers that Galicia was won. This was not the case, as we shall see ; but the fall of Przemysl was a very important gain to the Russians for many reasons. It gave the Russian soldiers, if possible, more courage than before. It also gave a large number of prisoners to the Russians, and they were now able to add to their fighting line the quarter of a million soldiers who had been investing the for- tress. Przemysl was founded in the Middle Ages by Russian princes, who ruled Galicia at the time, and its winning back by Russian soldiers seemed a very romantic thing. It must be remembered that the investment of Przemysl had not been a real siege. No great heavy guns had been brought up to bombard it, and during the investment not one shell fell within the town itself. The forts ran round the town at a distance of about four miles. There was a space of sometimes not much more than a mile, and some- times as much as five miles, between them. It was a strong fortress, but not one of the strongest in Europe. If Liege and Namur fell before the assault of heavy guns, Przemysl could not have held out long against them. But the Russians 32 THE WAR, 1915 had plenty of men to spare for an Investment, and preferred this method. It will be remembered that Przemysl is a very important railway centre. Through it runs the Russian railway con- necting Lemberg with Cracow, and another connecting Galicia with Hungary, and which runs across the Carpathians through the Dukla Pass. The Austrians had often tried to relieve the fortress since the beginning of November, when, with the advance of the Russians again, the investment had been resumed. Often, too, the garrison made *' sorties " — that is, came out from the fortress and tried to break through the investing line. Once the Austrians advanced through the Lupkow Pass In the Carpathians to try to relieve Przemysl, and at the same time the garrison made a sortie and reached a point only fifteen miles from the relieving army. But the Russians threw them back. Again the Austrians pressed across the Carpathians, in January, to try to relieve Przemysl, but failed once more. Then came the great Russian successes in the Carpathians in February and March ; but even in March several sorties were made from the fortress. It was a curious thing that these sorties were never made by a very great number of men, and when Przemysl fell the Russians were surprised to find such a large garrison defend- ing it. There were 130,000 men altogether, and only 30,000 had taken part in the sorties. When, on the 13th March, the Russians, in pushing back a sortie, took possession of the village of Malkowice, only five miles from the centre of the city, they knew that Przemysl must soon fall. The garrison knew It too, and on the 1 8th and 19th March they fired off a great quantity of ammunition, which was aimed at nothing In particular, and did no harm to anybody. The Russians guessed that they were only using up the ammunition, so that the Russians should not have it when the fortress fell. Yet even on the 2ist a sortie was made, in which great numbers of men were THE RUSSIAN FRONT 33 killed and wounded, and nearly 4000 prisoners taken. It seemed a very terrible thing for the Governor of the fortress to send men out to die and suffer when he must have known that they could not do anything to relieve the fortress. It was known afterwards that these men must have been starving. After the failure of this last sortie, all through the night of the 2 1 St March the garrison were busy firing off ammuni- tion, and throwing it into the river, smashing rifles and Spoiling guns. Then on the 22nd, when they had destroyed all that could have been of use to the Russians, the Governor- General Kusmanck yielded up the fortress without making any conditions. It was handed over quietly, and the Russians entered it as quietly, without any of the show which the Germans would have used in such a case. The conquerors found that the garrison and the people of the town were starving. They had been killing and eating horses, dogs, and cats. The people were as glad to see the Russians marching in as the Russians were of their victory. As quickly as possible they had food brought up by train for the starving people. There was a little delay in this, through the stupid order which the Governor had given to break down the railway bridges. People have thought that the holding out of Przemysl for so long was a very fine thing, but it is disagreeable to remember that the only people who had it in their power to say whether it would give in or not were those who were not suffering by the siege. When the Russians marched into Przemysl they were surprised to see the contrast between the ragged, hungry-looking soldiers and people and the officers, who looked perfectly healthy, and as comfortable as though there had been no investment at all. While women and children had been dying of starvation, all the best food had been kept for the officers, who had not suffered at all. This seemed very strange to the Russians, among whom there is the same affection between officers and men as between the British and French officers and soldiers. 34 THE WAR, 191 5 The garrison of Przemysl was sent off in batches as prisoners to Russia, and a Russian governor was put over the ruined fortress. The people settled down quite happily, and it seemed that Austrian Poland was to remain to the Russians. No one then guessed that In less than three months Przemsyl would be In the hands of the Austrlans again. After this great success In Galicia It was natural that the Russians should push on their attack through the Car- pathians into Hungary. It was also to be expected that Germany would do her utmost to help the Austrlans to drive them back. Hungary is a great wheat-growing country, and Germany depends greatly on her for her supply of flour for bread. The harvest of winter wheat was ready for reaping. If Hungary were to be overrun by the Russians, this supply would have been cut off. Germany had already to be very careful about her bread, the sale of which had been taken over by the Government. Moreover, the Germans ' knew too that Hungary was afraid of Roumania, and Austria of Italy, and if they had not sent help to push the Russians back their ally might have made a separate peace. Immediately after the fall of Przemysl the Russians pressed forward rapidly through the Carpathians, always killing and wounding many of the enemy, and taking large numbers of prisoners. By the 9th April the Russians held 70 miles on the Carpathians front from a point south of the great Dukla Pass, where there had been so much fierce fighting in this and the earlier Russian advances. In less than a month the Russians had captured on the Carpathian front 70,000 men, of whom about 900 were officers. Then in the middle of April news came that the Germans had sent enormous reinforcements to this front, and that German officers had taken over command of the troops there. Even whole German corps were sent to help to drive the Russians back in this part of the line. The Russian oifensive was checked. They knew that great numbers were coming against them, but they did not know how many. The THE RUSSIAN FRONT 35 Germans not only threw in great numbers of men, but made a special effort with their artillery. The method which the British had used at Neuve Chapelle, and which the Germans had said was " murder," was used here against the Russians. On a very small front 4000 guns were placed, arranged in rows one above another, and firing an immense number of shells in a very short time. And now one real weakness of the Russians made itself felt. They had always great numbers of men, but at this time they had not enough ammunition to resist a great . artillery attack like this. AH through the winter Russia had been cut off from communication with her Allies. The ammunition she needed so much could not be sent to her from the West. Her great northern port, Archangel, is always blocked with ice in the winter months ; and when Turkey joined in the war on the German side, the Black Sea, the only other way in which she could receive supplies quickly, was of course closed to the Allies. The Russians had to fall back through the Carpathians and in Galicia, but they retreated in order and fought every step. They were careful to keep their long line from being cut. Fighting in this way they fell back to the river San. By means of their terrible shower of shells the enemy was able to push them across the river and retake Jaroslav, which had been taken by the Russians in the early days of the war and kept ever since. Along the line of the San the Russians made a splendid stand. At one point only — at Stryj, where the Germans were pressing specially hard in the hope of taking Lemberg — ^they managed to pierce the Russian line, but it closed up quickly, and great numbers of the Germans found themselves cut off on the wrong side of the line. Lemberg was safe ; but at the beginning of June the Allies in the West were disappointed to hear that Przemysl had fallen again into German hands. Some people were very sad at the Russian defeat, but those who had studied best the way in which Russia had 36 THE WAR, 1915 fought throughout the war prophesied that she would soon recover and advance again. Moreover, it was pointed out that there was no real " fall " of Przemysl this time. Przemysl was no longer a fortress, for the Austrians had destroyed its fortifications before they gave it up. The Russians fell back from Przemysl on the 3rd June, just as they had fallen back many times before, to keep their line well connected and safe. For this same reason they had fallen back at this time in Southern Poland to keep their line continuous with that in Galicia. But they always fell back in order and fighting hard, and were always ready to take advantage of any slip on the part of the enemy. V/hen the Germans followed them up too rapidly at Opatow, the Russians turned suddenly and drove them back fourteen miles, and kept them there. North of East Prussia, too, the Germans invaded Russia, and took the town of Libau on the 8th May, but this move- ment was not important. It must be remembered that this falling back of the Russians did not represent a great victory of the Germans. The Germans had wished for such a crushing victory so that they could withdraw great numbers of their men to the Western front. But the Russians were not in any way crushed. They had been pushed back, as they had been pushed back before, after a wonderful advance, and those who knew them best were sure that they would advance again. The Germans had got the advantage through the Russian scarcity of ammunition, but they themselves were losing what they could not spare at this stage of the war — great numbers of men. At the end of the spring campaign the Russian victories and her fine retreat had had much the same effect on the German armies as General Joffre's " nibbling " tactics in the West. If the x\llies could not look forward to a near day when the Russians should pour into the plain of Hungary and into Silesia, they had the satisfaction of knowing that in the East, as well as the West, the process of " attrition " was going steadily on. CHAPTER IV EGYPT AND THE TURKS Everyone will remember how Germany and Austria, after fighting alone for three months against England, France and Russia, at last persuaded Turkey to join them as an ally. Great Britain declared war on Turkey on the 5th November, 1 9 14. Though it was the Allies who declared war, Turkey had behaved in such a way since the beginning of the war that they were bound to do so. It was the great wish which they had to keep the peace which had made the Allies bear so long the insults of Turkey. She had not behaved in any way as a neutral power should. When the war began there were two fast German cruisers, the Goeben and the Breslau, in the Mediterranean. These ships had been intended to go out on the trade routes and destroy British and French shipping. But they had not got out in time, and were still in the Mediterranean when war broke out. When they were chased by a British squadron, they raced away through the Dardanelles into Turkish waters. Instead of acting as a neutral sovereign, the Sultan gave a special audience to the captain of the Goeben, and entertained the German crews at a feast which lasted three days. As a neutral State, Turkey should not have allowed the German ships to stay in her waters, but in a short time she announced that she had bought the two ships, and that the crews were to be interned until the end of the war. Even this was not acting as a neutral State should ; but, as a matter of fact, the German crews were never interned at all. The men were given Turkish uniforms, and the officers were given command of the Turkish warships. The Goeben still 37 38 THE WAR, 1915 attacked trading ships of the Allies, and then at the end of October actually bombarded places on the Russian coast. It was ridiculous that a ship pretending to belong to a neutral power should behave like this, and at the beginning of November all of the Allies declared war on Turkey. Germany had for a long time been very friendly with Turkey, hoping to win from her a Black Sea port for Austria. She hoped also, by means of her influence over Turkey, to get great influence in the East, and, by the great Baghdad Railway, which she was helping Turkey to build, to be able to reach easily the seas of Southern Asia. German news- papers and statesman declared that Germany meant to fight against the great powers which, as we shall see, Great Britain already had in these waters. It can easily be understood, then, that Great Britain looked with distrust on Germany's friendship with Turkey. The most powerful statesman in Turkey was Enver Pasha, who had been partly educated in Germany. It was probably the Germans who persuaded him to get the Turkish Government to declare that the war was a " Jehad " — ^that is, a Holy War. The Sultan of Turkey is the head of the Mohammedans all through the world, and this cunning statesman thought that if a " Jehad " were proclaimed the millions of Mohammedans whom Great Britain rules in India and Egypt would rise up against her. He was quite wrong. The Mohammedans of India and Egypt saw two Christian nations fighting in a quite unchristian way against three others. They saw that this was no holy war, and throughout the British Empire the Mohammedans hastened to declare their loyalty to Britain. Many Mohammedans from India were already in the fighting line in France. One reason for which Germany wished Turkey to become her ally in the war was that this would alarm the Italians, who had won Tripoli from the Turks, and might now fear to lose it. If Turkey joined in then, Italy would be more likely to remain neutral, and would not join the side of the Entente^ EGYPT AND THE TURKS 39 But there can be no doubt that one of the chief reasons for which Germany was anxious to have Turkey as an ally in the war was the hope that Turkey would attack Egypt. This was made more likely because the Turkish officers were persuaded, as Germany was herself, that the best method of defence is a vigorous attack. Although Turkey had taken part in so many wars in the last few years, her army and navy were in a very bad state, but since January 19 13 she had put her army under German officers to be reorganized. They had greatly improved the Turkish army, but had not had time to make it into a really good army. Formerly only Mohammedan Turks were soldiers, but in the last few years the Turkish Government had said that any Turkish subject might be called upon to serve in war. It was never able to manage this. The Armenian and Christian subjects of Turkey, for instance, avoided training, and when any of these did fight in the Turkish armies, as some did in the Balkan wars, they generally deserted to the enemy. When Turkey joined in the war in November 1914 she had only 640,000 men, and a good proportion of these were only reservists. The officers, however, put in by the Germans were young, clever men, and the highest commands were held by Germans themselves. The Turks had also tried to improve their navy, and for this had put themselves under the guidance of Great Britain. Two Dreadnoughts were being built for her in British ship- yards when the war broke out, and these the Government immediately took for the British fleet. This was quite a right thing to do, but the Turks were very angry. Now, instead of this, they had the Goehen and Breslau. Besides these they had six smaller ships. The whole Turkish fleet, if it had come out on the open sea, might have been sunk by one British battleship. The position of Turkey, then, in entering the war was not a very happy one. She had enemies on every side. The Russian squadron in the Black Sea, though not large, was III D 40 THE WAR, 191 5 splendidly manned and commanded. A good number of French and British warships were waiting outside the Dardanelles. She had to keep an army of 300,000 men near Constantinople for fear any of the Balkan States should attack her, as they would have done if they found that Austria was conquering Servia. For all these States knew that if Germany should conquer she would reward Turkey by giving her territory taken from them. Then in the Caucasus Russia could put an army of three-quarters of a million men against her. It would really take all the remainder of the Turkish army to hold these back if this could be done at all. The Christian people of Armenia would only be too glad to throw off the rule of the Turks, who had treated them so cruelly. In Arabia, too, the people might be only too glad to rise in rebellion, as they had often risen before against the Turks. In the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf were British and Japanese warships, and the Turks had no ships to put against them. Being in this weak position, the Turks accepted the German teaching, and prepared for two invasions of enemy territory. They crossed the Caucasus, and invaded Russian territory, only to be driven back with terrible losses. In the winter campaign in the Caucasus, which was one long success for the Russians, the Turks suffered terribly. Fighting in bitter winter weather, in the high mountain passes covered with snow, they had only summer clothes made of cotton to wear. The Germans had promised to supply the Turks with clothing, but they failed completely, probably because they found it was as much as they could do to supply their own men on the two European fronts. The Turkish attack on the Russian frontier in the Caucasus, made under these conditions, was probably arranged by the Germans so as to relieve them by drawing off some of the Russian soldiers from their Eastern front. As a matter of fact, the Russian army in the Caucasus numbered three-quarters of a million. EGYPT AND THE TURKS 41 and it would have had to be a very successful attack indeed on the part of the Turks to bring about the withdrawal of troops from the other Russian front. The Turkish base was at Erzrum, and from here recon- noitring parties pushed through the mountain passes, only to be pushed back again by the Russians, after suffering terribly in the bitter cold and blinding snowstorms which had already set in. It was now the turn of the Russians to invade Cau- casian Turkey, their object being to push them back to Erzrum, and keep them there for the winter. Towards the end of November the Russians had advanced as far along the road to Erzrum as Koprukeui. There were three Turkish corps, or about 120,000 men, lying along this road. Almost another corps was brought up at the end of November, and lengthened the Turkish line at the western end of the frontier between the Russian and Turkish frontiers. The Turks had a very clear and good plan in doing thiso They meant to outflank the Russians, and attack them from the west when they were not expecting any attack there. The main struggle along the road from Kars to Erzrum went on fiercely. The Russians at Koprukeui were faced by a rather larger number of soldiers than they had themselves, and were' driven back to Khorosan, At the end of December the fighting here was of the fiercest. The Turks were pur- posely pressing the Russians hard here, and at the same time pushing on the outflanking movement. At Christmas it seemed that they were going to succeed. Keeping splendid communication between the different parts of the line, which is a most important point in an outflanking movement, the Turks had forced their way to Sarikamish, about thirty miles north of the position where the main armies were fighting. To the west the Turks were moving towards Ardahan. It seemed as though the Russian right wing would be easily surrounded. But the Russians acted too quickly, and four days after- wards began a counter-attack. By the New Year the loth 42 THE WAR, 191 5 Corps had been driven in two directions west and south from Sarikamish, and though on New Year's day the troops to the west got possession of Ardahan, they were driven out again two days later. When the loth Corps was driven back, the 9th Corps had been left behind, still trying to win Sarikamish, which was held by a small Russian force. The town held out for some days, and then the Russians fell back before the much greater number of Turks, refusing to give in, and fighting at every step. At last reinforcements came up through the deep snow to help them. The Russians now did successfully what the Turks had tried in vain to do. They surrounded the 9th Corps, which fought desperately, but had to give in at last. A great number of prisoners were taken, including the general in command, three other generals, and many officers, Turkish and German. A great number of guns, machine guns, and much transport were also taken. The Turks had fought their "best — indeed many had fought with the madness of despair. They had been cut off from their supplies, and with their thin clothing they suffered agonies from the cold. It is said that, brave men as the Turks certainly are, some of them gave in at last when they smelt the food cooking in the Russian field-kitchens. Part of the nth Turkish Corps had been cut off and surrounded with the 9th, but the rest of the corps determined to engage the Russians so fiercely that they could not press too hard on the retreating loth Corps. So well did the nth Corps fight that they drove the Russians back ten miles from Khorosan towards the frontier. The Russians made a stand at Kara Urgan, where, in the second week of January, a three days' battle was fought of the most fierce and terrible kind. Fierce snowstorms raged, and amidst them the men fought like tigerSo The Russians bayoneted a whole Turkish regiment except the officers, who gave themselves up. The Siberian Cossacks especially showed themselves fierce and terrible enemies. At last the nth Corps was forced to EGYPT AND THE TURKS 43 retreat, but made a stand again at Yenikoi, west of the Erzrum road. Here at last, after fighting against terrible odds, they fell into disorder and fled, leaving guns and baggage behind them. By this time large Russian reinforcements had poured in several directions into Caucasian Turkey. The ambitious invasions of Russia had not only proved a complete failure, but a Russian army of invasion was now in possession of a tract of Turkish territory, and the Turk had no chance of driving it out. Yet we cannot help feeling a certain ad- miration and sympathy for the Turks. They had under- taken a task which no other people of Europe would have cared to face, and they had fought with the greatest courage. Here, as throughout the war, the Turks were the victims of Germany. The second offensive movement made by the Turks was even more interesting and important to Great Britain. This was the invasion of Egypt. There were many good reasons which led Germany to advise the Turks to invade Egypt. The Suez Canal is the chief route between Great Britain and India. It would be a splendid thing if the Turks could win Egjrpt, and so get command of the Canal. It is not likely that the enemy thought they could really conquer Egypt, but they may have thought there might be some little success, and this would be cheering to the Turks. The Turkish people, as distinguished from the Government, were not at all in favour of the war, and this might make it more popular. One certain advantage to the Germans would be that Great Britain would have to keep a large number of soldiers in Egypt, and this would relieve the Germans in France and Flanders. Preparations to invade Egypt were made at the end of the year, and 60,000 or 70,000 men were encamped on the edge of the Sinai Peninsula in December 19 14. Then, at the end of December, the Turks began to move forward over the desert in which the Israelites under Moses met with so many adventures in the far past. The Turkish 44 THE WAR, 191 5 arrangements had been well made under German super- vision. Troops which were likely to be in sympathy with the English had been sent to the Caucasus. The transport had been well planned. Wide cast-iron wheels, especially suited to sandy ground, had been fastened to the guns. Pontoon bridges of iron had been prepared for crossing the Suez Canal. Each separate part was fitted with movable rollers to move it over rough ground, but these could be removed and the smooth iron surface slipped easily over the desert sand. Stores were also carried in the pontoons ; and, in fact, all the arrangements were of the best and most economical kind. The advancing Turks were fortunate in finding a fair amount of water in the shallow desert wells, for the winter in East as well as West was one of the wettest seasons for years. The first attack on the Canal was made by the Turks under their commander, Djemal Pasha, in the early morning hours of the 3rd February. The reason that this time was chosen was that the great sandstorm which passes over the desert for fifty days in spring had begun the day before, and the Turkish commander trusted that the noise of the wind would prevent the British hearing his advance. The western side of the Canal was splendidly prepared for defence. Months before trenches had been dug deep and strongly defended. In these trenches were men drawn from very different parts of the British Empire. There were the East Lancashire Territorial Division, under General Douglas. They had offered themselves for foreign service early in the war, and had been sent out to Egypt. On their arrival many of them were not particularly strong men, and had not had a great deal of training, but a few months' drilling and experience turned them into strong and splendid soldiers. Beside these, in the front line of trenches, were many Indians, and some native Egyptian soldiers. Behind them, in reserve, were some of the splendid young Australians and New Zea- EGYPT AND THE TURKS 45 landers who had come to the help of the mother country, but who were not yet sufficiently trained to be put in the fighting line. The war had brought together such a mingling of nations as even Egypt had never seen before in the course of her wonderful history. The Turks decided to make their attack on the part of the Canal south of Lake Timsah, where, if they were success- ful and got across, they would be only a few miles from an important railway junction. Then, too, there were low hills on the eastern side in which an advancing force could find good cover, and the banks of the Canal were fairly low, so that the pontoons and rafts could be fairly easily launched. For these reasons it is probable that the attack was expected here by the defenders. The attack made by Djemal Pasha against so much greater numbers in a strong defensive position was hopeless from the first. The Turks declared afterwards that they had never meant to try to cross the bank, but were merely making a reconnaissance. It has been thought that Djemal Pasha was persuaded by the German officers, against his better judg- ment, to attack, and that he purposely kept most of his men in the background ; and whether he did this intentionally or not, it is certain that the great part of his force never came into action at all. The Turks who did make the attack fought bravely and suffered horribly. The attack began at three o'clock in the morning of the 3rd February, while it was, of course, still dark. The Turkish plan was to make the chief attack between Tussum and Serapeum, while to the right smaller attacks were to distract the enemy's attention at El Kantara and Ismailia. To the left an attack was to be made at Suez. The Turkish soldiers were warned not to do anything or make any sound which would betray them to the enemy. Djemal Pasha may have had just a hope that he would be able to take the defenders by surprise. But the order was 46 THE WAR, 191 5 not obeyed. On the opposite bank, however, there was no sound to be heard except now and then the barking of a dog. The defenders did not fire until the enemy had actually got down to the Canal bank, and were launching their pontoons. Three of these were sunk immediately. The other two got across, but all the men in one pontoon were killed, and only a few of the others were able to land. They dug themselves in, not far from the bank, but by morning there were only four men left alive, and these were, of course, taken prisoners. By this time, the Turks were working under a heavy fire, and the men carrying the pontoons were shot down before they could launch them, crushing other men beneath them. At one point south of Tussum a British torpedo boat steamed up between two fires, and shelled the Turkish trenches. The Turks must soon have seen that they had no chance of getting across the Canal, but they returned to the attack again and again. Only at daylight, when they stood plainly revealed to the guns, did they fall back. Although the main defensive line was on the western bank of the Canal, there were advance posts on the eastern side at Tussum and Serapeum, and from that at Tussum some troops moved forward to a position from which they could pour a terrible enfilading fire along the enemy's line. The attacks to the north of Tussum began rather later than the main attack, and both at Kantara and Ismailia the Turks kept at a fairly safe distance, and the fighting here was not serious. At Lake Timsah one Turkish 6-inch gun opened fire on the British ships, and struck the Hardinge, an Indian trans- port ship, twice. Captain Carew, who was standing on the bridge, had his leg blown off, and was wounded in nineteen places, but he calmly said : *' Bring me a chair, and I'll take her into port." He was, however, not able to do this, for he soon became unconscious, but happily he recovered later from his wounds. The whole crew of this Turkish gun was afterwards killed by shots from another of the warships on Lake Timsah. EGYPT AND THE TURKS 47 By three o'clock in the afternoon of the 3rd February the Turks were in full retreat from the Canal. But a certain amount of firing still came from the eastern side. On the next day it was discovered that many snipers still lay hidden among the hills, and in one hidden trench some hundreds of Turks were still ready to fight. It seems that the Turk, as well as the Briton, does not know when he is beaten, A British warship was brought up to shell the position, and some Indian infantry advanced to charge with the bayonet. The trench was soon taken, many of the Turks resisting to the last, but others being at last willing to surrender. So the foolish, but at the same time romantic and tragic, attack of the Turks on Egypt ended in failure. The British lost in all only no men killed and wounded, while the Turks must have lost at least 3000, including 600 prisoners. They lost, too, their splendid pontoon bridge, for the pontoons which were not destroyed were simply left behind in the retreat. This made it certain that no new attacks would be made on the Canal for some time to come. On the other hand, the British did not follow up the retreating Turks across the desert. Evidently it had been resolved merely to keep on the defensive, and there were good reasons for this. Fighting in the desert is always terribly trying even to the most experienced soldiers. It would pro- bably have been foolish to embark on it with men, many of whom, although they had shown themselves, and were yet to show themselves, heroic under fire, had still had only a few months' training. The Turks might have been followed up and crushed, but the gain was not worth the loss. Enough had been done to show how wrong Germany had been in her views of the feeling within the Empire. Egypt, which had been made a British protectorate as soon as war was declared against Turkey, held as faithfully to Great Britain as the colonies Britain's own sons had built up across the seas. CHAPTER V FIGHTING IN THE PERSIAN GULF Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the Great War Is the way in which it has affected people and places all over the world. It would not seem at first sight likely that it would have spread so far as the Persian Gulf, one of the loneliest yet most historic places in the world. It was pro- bably round the Persian Gulf that the earliest races of man- kind lived, and now on its lonely waters the quarrel of some of the greatest modern nations was to be fought. The fighting in the Persian Gulf began when Turkey joined in the war, but the motives which led to the fighting had little to do with Turkey. For ten years Germany had been trying to get influence in the Persian Gulf, where Great Britain already had great power. The entrance to the Gulf is in one corner of the Arabian Sea. At its head the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates empty themselves. Here, sixty-seven miles from the coast, stands the town of Basra, where the Persian Gulf fighting began. The Germans, in desiring influence in the Persian Gulf, were once more threatening British power. In a way they were even threatening India, for the way through the Persian Gulf is the shortest way to that great British possession. The English had had certain rights in the Persian Gulf ever since 1622, when they had attacked and conquered various settlements which the Portuguese, then a great seafaring people, had made in the Gulf. In that year it was agreed between England and Persia that England should keep two warships always in the Gulf. Afterwards the number of warships was increased to five, and since that time Britain has been the chief Power in the Gulf. 48 THE PERSIAN GULF 49 It was forty-six years after this that the Turks conquered Basra and reached the Gulf. But they were never really able to conquer Arabia, and had practically no power on the western shores of the Gulf until late in the nineteenth century, when an ambitious Turkish statesman encouraged Turkey to annex El Hasa. But when Turkey laid claim to other tracts of land on the Gulf, Great Britain interfered, and she had to give up her claim. These schemes were dropped until Germany began her policy of influencing Turkey for her own gain. The reason that Germans had practically taken possession of the railways of European Turkey was the great desire Germany had for power in the East. Another step in the establishment of that power was the securing of a port on the Persian Gulf. All sorts of tricks and plans were made to try to win this port, but they never succeeded. A German scientific man even tried to buy a tract of land from an Arab chief, pretending that he wished to follow his scientific researches there. The chief refused. He had already promised Great Britain, who had now grown watchful, not to give up any of his lands without her consent. Several other attempts to buy or get possession of land in the Gulf were defeated by Great Britain. While all this was going on, the Turks were actually driven by the Arabs from the part of the Gulf near El Hasa which they had seized forty years before. In holding Germany back from interference in the politics of the Persian Gulf Great Britain was acting quite rightly. She was ready to allow all nations equal rights of trading in the Gulf, and it was she who had made its waters safe for traders by putting down the pirates which had infested them. But Great Britain had never seized land on the Gulf for herself, and it was not likely that she would allow Germany to do this, especially as the German newspapers and lecturers made no secret of their ambitions in the East. When war was declared on Turkey by Great Britain at 50 THE WAR, 191 5 the beginning of November, only the British consuls were allowed to leave Basra and Baghdad, but the other English people were not in any way ill-treated. The war in the Persian Gulf was to be prosecuted by the Indian Govern- ment, and troops had already been sent from India, and were stationed in Bahrein. From here they sailed to the mouth of the Shatt-al-Arab, the river in which the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates meet and flow into the sea. The little town of Tao, with the Turkish mud-fort behind it, was taken with very little trouble. A force was left in possession, and General Delamain, who commanded the brigade, proceeded with the greater number of his men up the river. They sailed between banks of date groves bordering the river, which lay beyond the desert. On one side lay Arabia, on the other Persia. Thirty miles up the river, on the Persian banks, were the great new works of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The oil refined there is meant for the use of the British Navy. General Delamain was anxious to arrive in time to prevent the destruction of the works by the enemy. They were guarded by H.M.S. Espiegle, which had already driven off some small Turkish gunboats. From here General Delamain sailed five miles further up the river, and disembarked his troops at Samigeh, on the Turkish side. The landing was very difficult, as the soft and slippery river-banks were ten feet high at this point. Here the soldiers encamped and dug themselves in. On the nth November, they were attacked by a Turkish force from Basra, but drove them back, killing and wound- ing about eighty Turks, but not losing many men them- selves. A few days later reinforcements arrived at the " bar " or mouth of Shatt-al-Arab, and the transports with several warships steamed up the river. The troops began to dis- embark on the 15th, but meanwhile General Delamain 's brigade was ordered to attack a Turkish port at the village of Sahain, four miles to the north. This was more a recon- THE PERSIAN GULF 51 naissance than an attack, and the village was not taken, though it was set on fire. Then, after one day's rest, the whole body of troops started on the march northward to Basra. On the way it was found that the Turks had now fled from Sahain and left it empty. But at Sahail, some miles to the north, the Turks were strongly entrenched, and were in possession of twelve guns, most of which were Krupps. Two of these were near the trenches. The others were hidden in a grove 2000 yards behind. The British had to advance against this position over perfectly flat ground, with no chance of " cover.'* Fortunately the Turkish fire was not good, and the British advance was of course helped by an artillery attack, while two gunboats enfiladed the Turkish trenches from the river. The troops, both British and Indian, advanced splendidly, though the Turkish fire became heavier and more accurate. Though many men fell killed or wounded, the rest still advanced, running with bayonets fixed, but when they were less than a quarter of a mile from the trenches the Turks rose and fled. It was impossible to pursue them with any profit, though the soldiers shot at them as they ran. The cavalry could not follow fast because of the soft ground, and suddenly the fleeing Turks were saved from the fire of the guns by a mirage, that false appearance of trees and water which is so often seen in the desert. It was no use firing at a foe which could not be seen, and so the guns ceased. Some days rest were necessary before the troops could advance on Basra, but on the morning of the 21st November news came that the Turks had left Basra, and that the Arabs were stealing what they had left behind. Fearing that the Europeans in Basra might be in danger. General Barrett, who was in command of the whole expedition, gave the order to advance. Some of the troops were sent up the river in two paddle- steamers, and the rest prepared for a desert march. Eight 52 THE WAR, 1915 miles up the river the Turks had sunk three ships to block the way for the British ships, and had put a battery of guns on the bank. But the Turks had not done the work pro- perly, and the ships got safely past. They were met by a ship sent by the American consul at Basra, saying that the Arabs were still going through the town, robbing and burning, and that he feared for the lives of the Europeans. The soldiers from the ships arrived at 9 o'clock in the morning of the 22nd November, in time to restore order, and no lives were lost. The rest of the soldiers arrived outside the city at midday, after a march of thirty miles through the desert. Basra is a very rich and busy city, being the centre of a great trade in dates. It is also very well situated, and if the bar at the mouth of the river were dredged, as it will be some day, Basra would be a splendid port. The capture of the town was, then, a very good thing for the British. There were no Turks left in Basra. There had never been many, and the few there had been were either officials of the Government or soldiers. It was through these leaving the town without government that some of the Arabs had broken into disorder. But now the population — ^Arab, Jew, and Armenian — ^settled down peacefully under the new Government. The British took possession of the city in the name of King George V. The Union Jack was hoisted, three cheers were given by the soldiers, and the warships fired a salute. The last hope of the Germans establishing themselves at Basra was gone for ever. . The Turks fell back from Basra to Kurna, a place forty- nine miles to the north, at the point where the Tigris joins the Euphrates. The Arabs think that Kurna is where the Garden of Eden was, but modern scholars believe that the Garden of Eden was on the river Euphrates, many miles north of this point. It was not expected that the Turkish resistance at Kurna would be very strong, and General Barrett sent forward only THE PERSIAN GULF 53 a detachment of his troops to attack it. Two river steamers with guns carried the troops, and three small warships, with two smaller boats with guns, went with them. Early in the morning of the 4th December the expedition landed on the eastern bank, four miles below Kurna. The river was very shallow here, and the boats had to be careful. From here Kurna itself and the village of Mezera were shelled. Mezera was destroyed in half an hour by the lyddite shells from the warships. The soldiers crossed the river, and drove the enemy from the village and the trenches. Those Turks who were able to save themselves crossed the river and took refuge in Kurna. The British now advanced up the bank until they were opposite Kurna itself. They found that the town was much more strongly held than they had expected. There were many more Turks there than could be attacked by this small expedition. They were strongly entrenched, too, and guns had been fixed in the windows of some of the houses. A terrible fire greeted the British across the river, and they began quickly to dig themselves in. During the night the Turks received reinforcements, but they did not attack. Colonel Frazer sent a message to Basra for reinforcements, and these arrived on the morning of the 5th December. By this time the Turks had taken Mezera again. Some of the warships had been struck by shells and damaged, but the British had destroyed two Turkish guns, one of which they were able to carry off. On the 7th Mezera was attacked and taken once more, and this time some of the British encamped there. But it was now seen that Kurna could only be taken by sending men to attack it from the north. Two battalions were sent up stream, marching along the eastern bank with two mountain guns. After marching some miles they crossed the river and marched down again along the western bank towards Kurna. No attack was made, but the troops entrenched them- 54 THE WAR, 19 15 selves. That night a small steamer came downstream with a message from Subhi Bey, who had been Governor of Basra, offering to surrender Kurna, but asking that his troops might march out armed. This could not be granted, and the Turks then agreed to surrender without conditions. At midday on the 9th December the Turkish garrison laid down their arms in front of their trenches, and Kurna was given up to the British. The British general handed back his sword to Subhi Bey, who had, after all, defended the town well. Forty-two officers and 102 1 prisoners were taken, and also several guns. Many of the garrison had escaped during the night, some having gone in barges to Baghdad. The British losses were small. The whole of the great delta was now in British hands. A strong body of troops was left at Kurna, and another at Mezera. In January a force of 5000 Turks encamped on the Ratta Canal about seven miles north of Mezera, but were driven off by the British with the help of three gunboats. But though the British had taken possession of this district fairly easily, they had yet to withstand many attacks from the Turks. Early in March several Turkish regiments attacked the British positions north of Basra. There was some fierce fighting, and the enemy lost some hundreds of men. Later in the month strong reinforcements were sent to the district round Kurna, and they were only just in time. Again in the middle of April the Turks attacked the British on the Euphrates with an army of 15,000 men, but again the British were victorious, and the Turks, after a desperate resistance, retreated before the fierce bayonet charges of the British. As they fled they left great quantities of stores and ammunition behind them. The fighting in the Persian Gulf was all to the advantage of Great Britain and the Allies. The Turks had lost the little influence they had had there, and the Germans could never hope to realize their ambition of rivalling the British power in the East. CHAPTER VI THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DARDANELLES The most romantic and perhaps the most terrible part of the war in the first months of 19 15 was the attempt by the Allies to get an entry into the Black Sea by capturing the Dardanelles, the straits which lead into that sea, and which have Turkey-in-Europe to the north, and Turkey-in-Asia to the south. The Black Sea was, in the winter, the only way in which the Allies could send any supplies to Russia. Her northern port was blocked with ice, and the German fleet guarded the Baltic. This was a terrible drawback to Russia, for it meant that she would run short, as we have seen that she did, of am- munition. It was because of this that the Germans were able to push the Russians back in April and May after their splendid advance in the early spring. The reason that the Black Sea was closed to the Allies and blocked for the Russians was that the Dardanelles belong to Turkey, and Turkey had been persuaded in November to join in the war on the German side. It Vv^as only after this that people began to understand how inconvenient it v/as for Russia that she had no port leading into the Mediterranean Sea. Her natural port would have been Constantinople, which the Turks stole from Europe in 1492. Not only was Russia inconvenienced by the closing of the Black Sea, but Britain and France also suffered, for there was shut up there much Russian wheat ready for export. The reason Russia depended so much on other countries for ammunition is that she is not a manufacturing country. She has a vast peasant population, but few large towns, and so far III 55 E 56 THE WAR, 191 5 has had to buy much of her ammunition from other countries. She could, it is true, get a certain amount from Japan across Siberia, but this was a terribly long way, and these supplies were not of any great use to Russia. For these and other reasons the Allies decided to join together to win the Dardanelles from the Turks. A victory here would not only help Russia to make full use of her splendid soldiers, but it might also persuade the neutral states of the Balkan Peninsula — Rumania, Bulgaria and Greece — to join in the war on the side of the Allies. The Greek people and the Greek Government, under the great statesman Venizelos, would have been glad to join in the war and help France and England. If Turkey were de- feated, Greece would gain land in Asia Minor which she much desired. But the King of Greece was against this. His wife was a sister of the German Emperor, and he did all he could to keep Greece out of the war. At last Venizelos resigned, but the people were still anxious for war, and in the early summer of 19 15 it seemed that Greece might join in after all. All these Balkan States were anxious to get more land. Bulgaria could only get it by Greece or Servia losing it, and some people were afraid that she would join in on the side of Austria, in the hope of getting part of Servia at the end of the war. But Greece would have been willing to give up some land in the Balkans to Bulgaria, and so keep her neutral if there was a hope of more land in Asia Minor. If the Dardanelles were taken too, Turkey would no longer be able to take part in the war. The Dardanelles Straits are forty miles long, and stretch from the y^gean to the Galllpoli Strait, which leads into the Sea of Marmora. At the other side of the Sea of Marmora is the strait called the Bosporus, leading into the Black Sea. The Bosporus would have to be taken too, but this could easily be done once the Dardanelles were won. The Dardanelles have strong forts all along their length, but THE DARDANELLES 57 they are especially well fortified in one part, called the Narrows, ten miles from the ^gean. Here they are only a mile wide. The Allies agreed that ships of the French and British navies should join to bombard the forts, and on the 3rd November a French and British squadron steamed up to the entrance of the Straits and bombarded the forts within range of their guns. This was not the beginning of the real bombardment, which could not be carried out until the German cruisers on the trade routes had been destroyed. Probably this bombardment was only to find the range of the forts. Some ships and submarines were, however, left near the Dardanelles, and it was at this time that Lieutenant Holbrook, commander of submarine Bii, dived under five rows of mines and destroyed a Turkish battleship. The Turks had strewed mines all along the Straits, and as there is a current from north to south in the Straits, the mines always drifted towards the iEgean, and were a great danger to any ships at the entrance of the Straits. When, later, the real bombard- ment began, the big battleships could only advance after mine-sweepers had gone before to clear the way. It was on the 19th February that the real bombardment began. A large fleet of British battleships and battle cruisers with destroyer flotillas, together with a French squadron, began to bombard heavily the four forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles, two on the side of Europe and two on the Asiatic. The stronger on the European side was Fort Sedd-el-Bahr, and on the Asiatic side Kum Kaleh. Both these forts had 10.2-inch guns, which could shoot almost as far as the 12-inch guns on the ships. The ships therefore began the bombardment *' at long range," not steaming in too close for fear of being hit by the guns from the forts. For seven hours the bombardment went on at long range. All four forts were attacked, but most shots were fired at Kum Kaleh and the Cape Helles battery, the second northern 58 THE WAR, 1915 fort. Then, at about eight o'clock in the afternoon, three French and three British battleships sailed closer to the forts, and bombarded them at closer range. The forts were able to use their guns against these ships which came closer, but before long all on the European side of the Straits and all but one on the other side stopped firing. Their guns had evidently been damaged or destroyed. No French or British ship was hit, but the Turkish communiques announced that three had been damaged, that none of the forts had stopped firing, and that only one man had been killed and one wounded on their side. Of course everybody in Europe knew that these were foolish lies. On the next day the Allies continued the bombardment. On both days the ship had been told where to fire by sea- planes, which had been brought by the seaplane ship the Ark Royal. Then, unfortunately, misty weather, which had been so unlucky for the Allies several times at sea and on the western front, put an end to the bombardment for a time. But on Thursday, the 25th February, it began again, and this time the greatest battleship which has ever been built, the British super-Dreadnought the Queen Elizabeth^ came to help. She was a very fast boat indeed, though not, of course, as fast as a battle cruiser, which is built especially for speed. She could go at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, but this was not the most wonderful thing about her. The shells which are thrown from her big guns weigh almost a ton, and can be thrown more than twelve miles. In an hour and a half these great guns of the ship, which the sailors called *' Big Lizzie," had so pounded the Cape Helles fort that its guns stopped firing. Then the smaller ships steamed in closer to finish the destruction of the forts. The forts on the southern side had had time during the misty weather to repair their guns, and when the ships came closer they opened fire. But the shots came very slowly and were very badly aimed. By the end of the day the whole four fort^ were simply masses of ruins. Of the British ships THE DARDANELLES 59 the Agamemnon was hit once by a shot from the Cape Helles fort, and three men were killed and five wounded. The sweeping away of the mines was now begun. Then, on the next day, three battleships advanced four miles up the Straits to attack Fort Dardanus, on the Asiatic side, and men were sent on shore to finish off the destruction of the four forts at the entrance. The powder magazines were blown up, and great columns of smoke and flame rose high into the air. Kum Kaleh was not entirely destroyed, but no part of the other three was left whole. It must be remembered that the guns of these forts were older and smaller than those of the ships, and this gave the ships a great advantage. Even so the destruction of the forts had not been an easy task. The bombardment of land forts by ships is one of the most difficult kinds of warfare. The bombardment of the four forts at the entrance to the Straits was the easiest part of the attack. The hardest part was to come, when the ships had to sail farther up the Straits. The Queen Elizabeth remained outside the entrance, for from here she could shell even the forts on the " Narrows," thirteen miles away. At the beginning of March three ships steamed ten miles up the Straits and bombarded the forts there. Then, on the 3rd March, the Queen Elizabeth began to bombard the forts on the Narrows. The forts on the Narrows are very close together, and have much larger guns. The Turks have always known how important the Narrows are, and have kept them well fortified. Within a few days two forts on the European side of the Narrows, and one on the Asiatic side, had been seriously damaged. All this time the peninsula of Gallipolli was cut off from getting help from the mainland by the bombardment of Bulair by one or more warships in the Gulf of Saros. On the 8th March the Queen Elizabeth entered the Straits and attacked the fort of Rumili Medjidieh. A few days later, on the night of the 13th, the Amethyst^ a light cruiser. 6o THE WAR, 191 5 steamed in the darkness right up the Straits under the fire of the forts to make a reconnaissance. She was struck many times, but got safely back with very little damage. By the i8th March it seemed that the Straits were safe for ships for nearly ten miles. The forts along this length had all been destroyed or damaged. The waters had been well swept for mines, and on this day the Queen Elizabeth and three other battleships bombarded the chief forts on both sides of the Narrows, while other ships went on with the bombardment of forts nearer the entrance. The forts also fired, but their firing was soon stopped. Then, when six more British battleships steamed up to take the places of those which had been under fire so long, a terrible thing happened. One of the French ships which had taken part in the bombardment and was now to be relieved was the Boiivet. Suddenly she struck a mine at a spot four miles up the Straits. She must have been struck in a vital spot, for she sank with all her crew in three minutes. A short time afterwards it was seen that the British ship Irresistible was leaning over dangerously, and she steamed out of the battle line and sank in two hours. About the time she sank another British battleship, the Ocean ^ also struck a mine. For- tunately most of the men and officers on both ships were saved, though the forts were firing on the ships while they were being taken off. It was thought that the mines which struck these ships were a kind of torpedo, called *' Leon torpedoes," which can be fired from a tube or merely put into the sea, when they will explode after a certain time. Most of the other ships had received some slight damage from shots, and though the three battleships were not a very great loss in proportion to the number of ships taking part in the bombardment, still it seemed a very terrible thing that three should go down like this in a few hours, and people began to understand what a hard task the Allies had set themselves in trying to force their way through the Dardanelles. Mine-sweeping had to be done all the time, and yet it THE DARDANELLES 6i was very difficult to do. Torpedo tubes had been fixed at many places on the shore, and the Turks under their German officers had hidden howitzers and field guns along the coast. The coast lands of the Gallipoli peninsula are covered with hills and valleys, just the kind of country where guns can be easily hidden. The air scouts worked splendidly, but when they knew their gun had been spied out the Turks could often move it, without being seen, to a new position, before the air scout had had time to give his message and the ships opened fire. The Turks would not, of course, have thought of all these things themselves, but they were advised and commanded by German officers. The trick by which the forts often stopped firing when they could still have fired seems more like a plan which the Turks would make themselves. Sometimes when this hap- pened, and a " landing party " went on shore from the boats, the guns would suddenly begin to fire again, killing and wounding the men. Then people began to see that the Navy ought to be helped in the attack by the Army. If good numbers of soldiers could be landed on the northern shore of the Gallipoli penin- sula at the Narrows, the hidden guns and batteries which were such a danger to the ships could easily be swept away. The landing of soldiers would be difficult, because the Turks could defend themselves so well from the hills, but on the other hand there was a very long coast-line to defend, and the enemy could not guess exactly where a landing would be made. With no railways it would take a long time for them to bring up reinforcements. A plan to land troops was now made, and the command was given to General Sir Ian Hamilton, one of the best-loved officers in the British army. Troops arrived at the Gallipoli peninsula on the 23rd April, carried in big liners. The plan was to land the British Troops at three places on the coast between Sedd-el-Bahr and the shore opposite to the Narrows. The first landing was to be at Morto Bay, 62 THE WAR, 191 5 north-east of Sedd-el-Bahr, but as shots from Kum Kaleh could reach this position a division of French soldiers, under the fine French General d'Amade, was to land at Kum Kaleh. The second landing of the British troops was to be made at Cape Gaba Tepe, on the north of the Gallipoli peninsula. To the south-west of a long stretch of flat land here is the important plateau of Pascha Degh. The capture of this plateau, rising steeply from the shore, was most important, for from it guns could *' command " the Narrows. There was to be another landing further north, but this was not so important, being made chiefly to draw off the attention of the Turks from the others. The transport arrived at the coast the men were to attack in the early morning hours of Sunday the 25th April. The landing near Cape Gaba Tepe was entrusted to Australian and New Zealand troops, some of the splendid soldiers whom the colonies had sent to help the Mother Country. A small number of troops were to be landed first to " cover " the landing of the other troops — that is, they were to take as strong positions as possible and keep the enemy back while the other soldiers landed. At the same time fire from the battleships was to help them in the diflS.- cult task. It was between four and five o'clock, and not yet day, when the boats containing the " covering forces " drew near the shore. The enemy became aware of their approach, and at ten minutes to five an alarm signal was flashed out. The boats were fired upon before they reached the shore, but the men pressed on, to find that the shore was entrenched. They did not wait to load their guns and fire, but rushed forward with their bayonets. The Turks were overcome, and the trenches taken. The men now advanced across the shore to find a new row of trenches among the low bushes on the cliffs rising slowly from the shore. In the darkness the landing had been made a little to the north of the right spot, where there were no cliffs. But the THE DARDANELLES 63 Australians and New Zealanders were not the least bit dis- couraged. They cleared the second row of trenches as easily as they had done the first. But when daylight came many Turkish snipers crawled through the bushes and shot on the troops as they landed. Then guns from Gaba Tepe " enfiladed " the beach — that is, poured a fire from the side along it. These guns were at length silenced by fire from the warships. The covering forces on the top of the cliff suffered a great deal during the day. It was difficult to get food to them or to attend to their wounded, but they were as cheerful as ever. If the colonial troops have any fault at all it is that they are almost too anxious to take risks and do things which better-disciplined British troops would think it almost foolish to attempt. Even on this day some of the troops, anxious to advance, had gone too far from the shore and had been almost surrounded by the enemy. But no better men could have been chosen for the great work they were doing. The next two days the men ** dug themselves " well in, but Turkish reinforcements and guns had been brought up in great numbers, and they poured fire upon the colonials. But the warships from the sea in their turn rained shrapnel on the Turks. For two hours this went on, and then the men burst from the trenches with a cheer, and the Turks ran before them. In some parts of the line they fell into confusion, but still firing was kept up all day. The Turks tried shooting at the crowds of small boats on the sea carrying reinforcements and provisions to the men on shore. The young officers, often mere midshipmen, in the boats did not seem to mind a bit, and the men from the trenches were so anxious not to miss their daily baths that they took them in the sea, often with the shrapnel falling round them. One or two Turkish warships tried to help by firing from the Straits across the peninsula, but they were driven off by the guns from the British warships. By the morning of the 28th April the troops were so strongly en- 64 THE WAR, 191 5 trenched that there was no chance of the Turks driving them away. On the same Sunday morning that the first troops landed at Gaba Tepe, another small force landed in Morto Bay. The way was prepared by a bombardment from the warships, and the troops easily captured the first row of trenches by a bayonet charge. The Turks who were not killed or wounded simply ran away. The hill above the eastern side of the bay was occupied in less than three hours. But the troops who were trying to land at Sedd-el-Bahr had a much more difficult task to perform. It was naturally a difficult place to take, sloping upwards to a ridge. To the right was a steep cliif, to the left a fort. On the shore barbed wire defences had been drawn up, and trenches had been made on the ridge. In order to prevent the troops being fired on as they landed, a large liner, the River Clyde , contain- ing the landing party, was run up on the beach. Doors had been cut in the side of the vessel to allow the troops to land easily. But when the first men landed and ran for shelter to a sandbank, the fire was so heavy that the officer in com- mand decided to keep the other troops in the ship until it was dark. This was done, and the rest of the men were got safely out without a single one being killed or wounded. While the landing had been going on, another covering force which had landed at Cape Helles, to the west of Sedd- el-Bahr, rushed forward across the beach, breaking down the wire entanglements, and secured a footing at the point of the bayonet on the ridge overlooking Sedd-el-Bahr. Here they remained to cover the landing of the rest of their force. They had no artillery, but when the Turks attacked them they drove them off, and the rest of the force landed after dark quite safely. The next day they advanced towards Sedd-el-Bahr, and by the afternoon had joined forces with the troops who had landed at Morto Bay. They seized Sedd-el-Bahr, and now at this point too there was no chance of the Turks driving them away. THE DARDANELLES 65 The south-western part of the Gallipoli peninsula was now strongly held by the Allies. The taking of it had been a splendid piece of work. It would probably have been im- possible but for the splendid and continual firing of the guns from the warships. Meanwhile a regiment of French soldiers had been landed at Kum Kaleh, they too being protected by the guns from British and French warships. They took Kum Kaleh, and marched along the coast to Yeni Shehr. All the way they had to fight against much greater numbers than themselves, but they killed and wounded many Turks and took 500 prisoners. By the end of April the Allied line stretched right across the southern end of the peninsula, with its flanks protected by the warships. The Australians and New Zealanders were also strongly entrenched north of the Narrows. A great work had yet to be done in pushing the advance so as to get pos- session of the whole peninsula, but a splendid beginning had been made. The Allied troops had lost many men in killed and wounded, and the brave Australians and New Zealanders especially had suffered, but the Turks lost many more. The Turkish newspapers confessed that 10,000 Turks had been killed and wounded and 3000 prisoners taken in the fighting at Sedd-el-Bahr ; and, as the Turks always tell the best story they can for themselves, we may be sure that there were many more. It was estimated that by the end of the third week of May tlie Turks had lost altogether 55,000 men in killed and wounded. One very fine thing in the struggle for the Dardanelles was the way in which the Allies worked together, the French troops helping loyally to carry out the splendid plan of Sir Ian Hamilton. The Russians, too, had done their part. Their warships had from time to time bombarded the Turkish forts on the Bosporus from the Black Sea. They had also bombarded ports on the Black Sea where the Turks stored up their coal. Early in April, too, they had an exciting 66 THE WAR, 191 5 chase after the Breslau and Goehen^ which had after all been able to put to sea again. On the same day the Turkish cruiser Medjidieh struck a mine in the Gulf of Odessa and sank. In April, too, the British fleet suffered a loss when the submarine E15 ran ashore near Kephez Point. The crew were taken prisoners, but British sailors would not stand by and see the submarine taken by the enemy. It was blown up by men who approached the shore under fire from the Turkish guns to perform this feat. The submarine E14 did splendid work in Turkish waters at this time. On the 3rd May she sank a Turkish gunboat in the Sea of Marmora, and ten days later drove a steamer ashore near Rodosto. The submarine Eii also found its way into the Sea of Marmora and attacked Turkish ships near the Arsenal at Constantinople towards the end of May. Meanwhile the shelling of the forts and mine-sweeping still went on in the Straits, but the important part of the struggle for the Dardanelles was now being done by the brave British and French troops, who were fighting their way forwards with the greatest courage, but unfortunately, too, with heavy loss. The Turks were very strongly entrenched, and had profited immensely by the advice and help of their German allies. The numbers of British killed and wounded in Gallipoli during May were much larger than they had been in any equal time on the western front. The progress was slow. After a fierce battle of three days, from the 6th to the 8th May, in which the British were trying to get possession of Krithia, the report was that a slight gain of ground had been made. But if progress was slow it was sure, and if many men laid down their lives in the struggle they knew that here, at the Dardanelles, the gain of ground for which they were fight- ing was of the greatest importance. The winning of the Dardanelles would be a turning-point in the war. CHAPTER VII THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES We all know how the Germans tried to harm British trade by sending battleships to attack British ships on the high seas. We know, too, how practically all these German ships were destroyed or shut up in safe places within a very few months. For the most part the ships of the German navy kept well within their harbours. Then in November some of them slipped out, rushed across to bombard unfortified places on the East Coast, and ran back again to harbour. They had prepared mine-fields against any ships of the British fleet which should chase them, and dropped mines in the water as they fled. The British Admiral had not been taken by surprise. He had expected raids on the East Coast, and a mine-field had been prepared in front of Yarmouth harbour, which kept the enemy's ships off so far that their shells were not really able to injure the town. British cruisers were ready, too, to close in on the raiders from two sides, but they had very bad luck. A sudden mist hid the German vessels as they fled away, and it was impossible to find the range to shoot at them. One of the British submarines, D5, was struck and sunk by a mine, but the Germans themselves suffered a worse thing. One of their great armoured cruisers, the Yorckf a sister ship to the Scharnhorst and GneisenaUy struck one of their own mines and sank just at the entrance to Jahde Bay. Only 127 men out of 629 were saved, and great inconvenience was caused to the Germans through the blocking of the harbour by the sunken ship. Then, again, in December the Germans sent out a much stronger expedition, and the terrible raid on Scarborough 67 68 THE WAR, 191 5 and the Hartlepools was made. Sir John Jellicoe had been waiting for this. Two battle squadrons immediately put out to sea, and at a point of the British coast far to the north eight British super-Dreadnoughts got ready to bear down on the raiders. The whole thing was splendidly planned. Admiral Jellicoe had arranged that the wireless messages from ship to ship should be made in a very difficult code, so that no spies could pick them up and warn the Germans. If things had gone as they were expected, not one German ship would have got away. But again the British had the worst possible luck. Another heavy fog came down, and the enemy escaped after doing their dreadful work. The fog came down just at the very moment when the British ships had taken the range and were preparing to open fire. The Germans saw the British ships, and, fearing to be hit, even in the fog, changed their course. The battle cruiser Von der Tann ran into the light cruiser the Frauenloh. Both were damaged but able to put into port. So even now the Germans did not escape some punishment, but it must have been a terrible disappointment to Sir John Jellicoe, who had planned all so well. It is reported of him that he never once made the slightest mis- take in the manoeuvres which the fleet practises regularly in time of peace. The sudden fog was a misfortune against which no one could provide. But Sir John was to have his triumph yet, and to give the Germans a lesson which put an end to the raids of their battleships on the East Coast. On Sunday, the 24th January, there was fought between the finest ships of both navies " the Battle of the Dogger Bank." It was on the evening of the 23rd January that the four battle cruisers, which were all that were now left of fast boats to the German fleet, came out from the Bight of Heligoland into the North Sea. It is supposed that Admiral Hipper, who was in com- mand, meant to engage in fight the British North Sea Squadron with some of his cruisers, while one or two of the THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 69 fastest cruisers went north to get out on the high seas to begin again their destructive work on the trade routes. There was only one German cruiser left on the high seas now, the Dresden^ which escaped from the battle of the Falklands, and it was sunk by the Glasgow, Kent, and Orana on 14th March. The four big cruisers were the Seydlitz, on which Admiral Hipper flew his flag, the Derfflinger, the Moltke, and the Blilcher. The first three had smaller guns than the British cruisers, and the Bliicher, which had been built to imitate British vessels of the Dreadnought type, was not able to steam very quickly. Germany began to build this boat in 1906, when she heard that Great Britain was going to build the Invincible. But the details of the build- ing of the Invincible were kept secret, and, when the Bliicher was finished in 1909, the Invincible and two other cruisers of the new type were already on the seas. Not only could they go two and a half miles an hour faster than the Blilcher y but they were built to carry heavy guns. They were not cruisers of the old sort, but " racing battleships." The Germans had built faster cruisers since, but they did not carry such heavy guns as ours. Cruisers are especially useful in a *' running fight,'* and it was for a running fight, that Admiral Hipper was prepared. He had not expected to have five of the great British battle cruisers against him. But when the German cruisers stole quietly out of the Bight of Heligoland, with their flotilla of destroyers and six light cruisers to prepare the way and search out any British submarine which might be there ready to attack the cruisers, Admiral Sir David Beatty was also sailing out of a port in Scotland with five fine battle cruisers, four light cruisers, and a flotilla of destroyers, with the cruisers which go with them, the Arethusa, Aurora, and Undaunted. So well was the watch kept by the British navy on the doings of the Germans - that it seemed as though Sir John Jellicoe could not be taken by surprise. Sir David Beatty was on his flagship, the Lion, and the 70 THE WAR, 191 5 other cruisers were the Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, and Indomitable. It was seven o'clock on Sunday morning when the Aurora caught sight of the German ships, about fourteen miles away, near the Dogger Bank. The Aurora immediately began to fire, and sent a wireless message to inform Sir David Beatty of the fact. As soon as the Germans knew that they had been sighted, they turned round and steamed as quickly as they could to the south-east. As fast as they could the British battle cruisers got up steam, and steered south-east too. The light cruisers kept the German ships in sight, and sent continual wireless messages to Sir David Beatty, informing him of their movements. As the German ships fled, they dropped mines behind them, but Sir David Beatty ordered his ships to chase them, not in the same line, but in a parallel line at least six miles distant. The big British battle cruisers were now going at a speed of thirty-two miles an hour, which was quite easy for three of them, but rather difficult for the Nezv Zealand, and very hard indeed for the Indomitable, an older and slower ship. In a battle of this sort the fighting ships must keep together, and the stokers in the Indomitable worked at an immense speed to send the ship along at a much faster rate than usual. They were rewarded when, in the middle of the chase, Admiral Beatty signalled the message : " Well done, Indomitable stokers ! " In less than an hour and a half the British ships had got within twelve miles of the hindermost German ship. The Lion fired a single shot at this point, but it fell short. At a few minutes past nine the ships were ten miles apart, and the Lion fired a shot which struck the last ship, the slow-going Bliicher. The shell, which weighed half a ton, and went through the air at the rate of a mile in two seconds, tore open the armour plate of the Bliicher. In a few minutes more the Tiger was also near enough to shell the BUicher, and the Lion then began to fire on the Derringer, THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 71 and struck her over and over again. The splendid 13.5-inch guns of the British ship worked with the greatest correct- ness, and the gunners used them as coolly and accurately as though they were merely practising. The Lion, Tiger, and Princess Royal did the greatest part in the firing with their twelve great guns. Each fired in turn at the Blucher, and then, as she fell behind, they passed her and turned their fire on the other three ships. The Seydlitz and the Derfflinger were both badly damaged, but the Moltke not so much, as she was protected by a haze of smoke. Smoke is the worst thing a gunner has to face in settling the direc- tion of his target. The British destroyers had kept well to the left of the cruisers for this reason, but at nearly ten o'clock the German destroyers were sent towards the British ships, and then a division of British destroyers, led by the Meteor, steamed to keep them off. The Meteor was then in the midst of the fight. Shells fell all round her, yet for two hours she stayed in this dangerous position without being struck. Then about mid-day the Meteor steamed closer to the Bliicher, meaning to torpedo her. The Blilcher had now no chance of escape. She was burning fiercely in the middle. The New Zealand and the Indomitable turned their guns upon her to finish what the larger guns of the newer cruisers had begun. Then with her last shot she struck the Meteor, killing four men and wounding a fifth. Immediately after both the Meteor and the Arethusa fired torpedoes. Probably both struck her. The German crew lined up to go down with the ship, but an officer on the Arethusa called to them through a megaphone to jump into the water. They stood and cheered as the ship went down, and then dived into the water. The Bliicher turned right over, floated some time, and then sank slowly. The British saved 125 of the Germans, and would have saved more but that a Zeppelin and a German aeroplane appeared above the spot and dropped bombs upon the drowning men and their rescuers. It is supposed that III F 72 THE WAR, 191 5 they thought that it was a British ship which had been sunk. But even so it was a terrible thing to drop bombs on the drowning men. Meanwhile the German destroyers got between the German and British cruisers to protect the Germans by their smoke, and under cover of this Admiral Hipper turned his ships northwards. But Sir David Beatty saw the change at once, and changed the direction of his own ships. Then the German destroyers were ordered to close in and make a torpedo attack on the two front British cruisers. But a destroyer attack is of very little use except in darkness or half-light, and the big British guns soon drove them off. Then it was seen that German submarines were approach- ing the British cruisers from the right. Sir David Beatty himself saw one approaching the Lioriy and made the ship swerve to avoid it. The danger from the submarines was not very great, as the cruisers were moving at so great a rate, and the water was so calm that the periscopes could be easily seen. It seemed as though all the enemy's ships would certainly be destroyed, but, unfortunately, at about eleven o'clock the Lion^ which had had already many shots on her armour without being damaged, got a chance blow in the bow as it rose high out of the water through the great speed at which she was going. The feed tank was struck, and one engine stopped. It was only a small injury, but it reduced the speed, and the Lion had to fall out of the fighting-line. Sir David Beatty immediately transferred his flag to one of the destroyers, and prepared to go on to the Princess Royal. But this took some time, and in this time Sir Archibald Moore, who was next in command, broke off the fight. The reason for this has not been told, but it has been said that the battle of the Dogger Bank had been prepared by the Germans to lead the British ships into a trap, and that Admiral Ingenohl was waiting with his battleships to close jn on them from the east. It may have been information THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 73 of this sort which caused Sir Archibald Moore to let the German cruisers go home without destroying them. This would also account for the fact that Admiral Hipper had made no real attempt to fight, but had simply run away, firing at a range which, with his smaller guns, could not do any real damage to the British ships. It was reported afterwards that one of the three ships was badly damaged and probably made useless, but that the other two could be repaired. The Lion was towed safely to port by the Indomitable, and was easily repaired. The battle of the Dogger Bank was another lesson to the Germans of the strength of the British navy, and it seemed as though it was this victory which made them take a serious resolution, which they announced a few days later, to use their sub- marines in a way which was really piracy. If they were always to be beaten when they fought the British on the seas, they would at least do their worst against them under the waters. Except for her trade with Germany, which was, of course, stopped. Great Britain could trade as freely as ever with other lands. But it was quite different with Germany. It has been always understood that when two nations are at war they may, if they are able, prevent certain things from being carried into the enemy's country. There have been many meetings between representatives of the great States of Europe in the past to settle the rules about trading with countries while they were at war. But they have disagreed a great deal about these rules. Natur- ally Great Britain, which is the strongest Power of all on the seas, would not agree to rules which would almost have prevented her fleet being used except for actual fighting. In 1909 the European Powers met and agreed on certain rules which were called the Declaration of London. But Great Britain would not agree to them, and so they never really became part of international law. It is, of course, always understood that the ships of the countries at war may 74 THE WAR, 19 15 seize each other. A ship captured in this way becomes the property of the Government, and its cargo is sold and the money taken by the Government. But the difficulty begins when ships of neutral countries, or countries not taking part in the war, are stopped by the ships of the belligerents or countries taking part in the war. Everybody agrees that a country may prevent certain articles being taken to the lands with which it is at war. These articles are called contraband of war, and are things which are used chiefly for the actual war. Such things as ammunition or guns are, of course, plainly contraband of war. Then there are articles which the Declaration of London put on the '' free list." Among these were such things as cotton and other materials used to make cloth, &c. Accord- ing to the Declaration of London ships carrying these things were not to be stopped unless they were going to ports against which a blockade was declared. A blockade is established when one country declares that it will not allow any ships at all to enter the enemy's ports. Great Britain could have declared a blockade of the German ports at the beginning of the war, but for various reasons did not. Then there were articles described as *' conditional con- traband," which might or might not be useful to the army of the enemy. Ships carrying these things could only be stopped, according to the Declaration of London, if they were being sent to certain places or people which made it certain that they were going to be used by the enemy's army or Government. Now, according to these rules, Germany would have been able to get almost anything she wanted by train through Holland, whereas England, being an island, which depends so much on the things which come to her in ships, would have been put at a great disadvantage. However, at the beginning of the war Great Britain and France declared that they were going to take no notice of the .^ THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 75 Declaration of London^ but would observe the provisions of an earlier agreement known as the Declaration of Paris. They would, however, make certain changes even in this. Things were to be kept from passing into Germany for the use of her army, even through neutral ports ; and so neutral vessels carrying even articles on the " free list '^ could be searched, and if it was found that their cargo was going to pass through to Germany, they could be taken by the Allies. The country which suifered most from this was Holland, for three-quarters of the things which are taken from the ships at the great Dutch port of Rotterdam are, as a rule, sent on to Germany. Now all this trade was stopped, and many Dutchmen were thrown out of work. But the Dutch Government was very careful to see that Dutch neutrality was kept, and that things did not pass through Holland to Germany. The United States was the country which suffered most after Holland, and President Wilson complained to the British Government, at the end of 1914, of the harm done to American trade by the delay caused in the searching of American ships. He complained, too, that food stuffs and other things on the " free list " had been prevented from going into Germany. Sir Edward Grey, in a very careful answer, showed that the injury to American trade had not been so very great after all, and he declared also that in a country which had conscription, and practically all its men as soldiers, it was difficult to distinguish between the army and the civil popu- lation. This was quite true ; but in a way it meant that Great Britain was fighting against the civil population of Germany. One of the greatest wrongs which Germany had done during the war was to kill and injure non-combatants, and it seemed a pity to give the Germans the chance to say that the Allies were doing the same by *' starving " the Germans. Sir Edward Grey promised that he would allow American 76 THE WAR, 191 5 ships to pass on freely, if they showed a certificate from the United States Government saying where the ship was going and what cargo it carried. So Great Britain was able to keep things out of Germany and yet remain friendly with the neutral states. Of course it must be remembered that Germany grows and produces so many things herself that we could not really deprive her of the necessities of life. Still the Germans were terribly angry, and on the 4th February 19 15 they declared a " submarine blockade " against Great Britain. They would, they declared, try to destroy by submarines every enemy's ship sailing in the waters round Great Britain and Ireland. They would do this " even though the lives of crews and passengers should thereby be endangered." Before this war no one had ever thought it right to sink merchantmen (or ordinary trading or passenger vessels), even after they had searched them. If a vessel was found to be an enemy vessel or a neutral ship carrying con- traband, the ship which captured it had to tow it into harbour, where a proper judge could say whether the ship was guilty or not. In this war, for the first time the custom had grown up of sinking such vessels if the ship which captured them could not go safely into port. But always before the ships were sunk the crews and passengers were taken safely off. But before this famous proclamation of the submarine blockade in February 191 5, ships at sea taken in this way had never been attacked except by gunfire, and they had always been warned first. Now submarine warfare is quite different. The submarine approaches its victim silently and unseen, and launches its torpedo, which, if it does not miss fire altogether, almost certainly blows the ship up. In most cases no warning can be given (or the ship would immediately get out of the way of the submarine), and all the people in the ship will be drowned, unless they are picked up after the explosion. The submarine has no room to take on the people from another vessel, and the best it can do is to warn them to get into their lifeboats before the ship is THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 77 blown up. The Germans in any case never showed them- selves generous in picking up the drowning people from the ships they had destroyed. The submarine blockade which they now threatened was nothing else but murder. All the world was horrified by it, and even more so because the German proclamation warned neutral countries that their ships also would be in danger in the seas round Britain. This meant that the German submarines would if they could sink all vessels coming to Great Britain. There was to be no search and no warning. If they really could have done all that they threatened, Great Britain would have had to go without all sorts of things, for she of course depends more than any country in the world on food stuffs brought from her colonies and abroad. Ever since Germany found that she could not build big battleships as quickly as Great Britain, she had made up her mind to build submarines as fast as she could and attack Britain's big ships with these. Many people even in Eng- land thought that there was very little use in building battle- ships which could be destroyed by one torpedo from a submarine. But the submarine, after all, is of no use except under the sea. It must come up for air after a time. Its torpedoes must miss any vessel going at a great speed, while the submarine itself is very delicate and fragile. If an ordinary ship rams it, it breaks like a shell. So, after all, the " submarine blockade " could not do any really great harm to Great Britain. It was not really a " blockade " at all, for it did not prevent Great Britain getting her supplies from abroad as usual. By the end of May, after four months of the *' blockade," the submarines had only managed to strike fifty vessels out of the 30,000 which sailed in and out of the British ports during that time. The Germans had hoped to frighten people terribly, but ships sailed the seas just as before. Still it caused a great deal of sorrow. Sometimes the crews of the ships were 78 THE WAR, 191 5 saved, but often they were not, and here again the Germans were bringing death to innocent people and non-combatants in the same cruel way they had done all through the war ever since the angry soldiers burst into Belgium, and killed men, women, and children without warning or mercy. The German submarines had already attacked merchant vessels and sunk them long before they declared their blockade, and for this reason many ships had flown the flags of neutral countries instead of their own. This is an old trick, and many ships have saved themselves in past wars by it. But the British Admiralty, or department of government which has to look after naval aff'airs, had itself by wireless messages told some British ships to protect themselves by flying a neutral flag. Many people thought that Great Britain should have been too proud to play a trick like this, and the United States once more complained. The flying of the American flag by British ships might, they said, lead to American ships being attacked by the Germans. This was, indeed, one reason which Germany gave for attacking even neutral vessels in her new " blockade." The great British liner the Lusitaniay one of the biggest ships ever built, and which was used to carry passengers between Liverpool and New York, had sailed into Liverpool from New York flying the American flag. The Liisitania was later to be the chief victim of the " blockade." The date fixed for the beginning of the *' submarine war " was the i8th February. It made very little difference, if any, to the sailing of British ships, but a shipping newspaper offered a prize of ^£500 to the first British merchant ship which should sink a German submarine. This prize was won by a small steamer called the ThordiSy which was the first to sink a German submarine on the 28th February. The Thordis was attacked by the submarine near Beachy Head. The captain saw it some yards away, and in a few minutes saw a track through the waves like a *' long feathery arrow." THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 79 It was the track made by a torpedo aimed at the boat by the submarine. But the torpedo missed its mark, for the sea was rough at the time, and as the little vessel was pitched upwards by the waves the torpedo passed underneath her. The brave and clever captain of the Thordis did not wait for a second torpedo, but immediately steamed straight towards the submarine to ram her. There was a crash, a scraping noise, and the submarine had disappeared. In a short time the water near the spot was covered with oil, which had pro- bably risen to the surface from the broken tanks of the wrecked submarine. There can be no doubt that the Thordis had sunk the submarine, and in due course the captain received his prize. One or two other vessels have since claimed to have sunk German submarines, and many steamers have at least very cleverly escaped from their attackers. Some simpl}^ steamed away at full speed, and so escaped. Others steamed along in a zigzag manner, so that the submarines could not see where to aim their torpedoes. The submarines attacked neutral vessels as they had threatened to do, but in most cases the people on board these vessels were given time to get off safely, while this was often not done with British ships. One very cruel case was the sinking on the 28th March of the Falaba^ a fairly large pas- senger ship belonging to Liverpool owners. The Falaba was carrying 160 passengers when a German submarine came up to her, and gave warning that it was going to sink her. The crew were allowed five minutes to get out the boats and get the passengers and themselves into them. It was quite impossible to do this in the time, and in the hurry an accident happened to one of the boats. The torpedo was fired while most of the passengers were still on the ship, although there was a trawler near which would have come up to take the passengers off if it had been allowed to do so. It was said that the German sailors laughed and mocked at the drowning people. 8o THE WAR, 1915 Sometimes the captain of a submarine would behave quite well. For instance, the captain of the U29, a very big submarine, behaved just like a British captain might have been expected to do. The U29, before it sank the Adenwen near the Scilly Isles, gave the crew ten minutes to launch the lifeboats. The captain of the Adenwen had asked him to spare the ship, but he replied that " war was war,'* and he could not. " But," he said, " we wish that no lives should be lost." Plenty of time was given to the crew, and when one sailor either fell or jumped overboard the captain of the U29 sent him a dry suit of clothes. Though they took the flags of the Adenwen as souvenirs before they sank her, they were careful to ask if the sailors had enough food, and they towed the lifeboats until they met a Norwegian steamer which took charge of them, and said good-bye at last, leaving a present of cigars. This story made people rather sorry that the U29 was one of the submarines sunk by the British cruisers and destroyers. It was sunk on the 25th March. A fairly large number were destroyed in this way during the first four months of the blockade, and so the German navy suffered a loss much greater in proportion than they caused to Great Britain by the sinking of her ships. The chief result of her " blockade," besides the murder of inno- cent people, was the disgrace it brought upon Germany, not only with the Allies, but in neutral countries. Early in March, when the German submarine the U8 was sunk off Dover after being chased by twelve destroyers, it was decided by the Admiralty that her twenty-nine officers and men who were saved could not be allowed honourable treatment or to mingle with other prisoners of war, as the submarine had probably been guilty of sinking unarmed ships. The Germans replied by taking an equal number of British officers who were prisoners, and giving them very harsh treatment. Many people thought it was a mistake of the British Admiralty to treat the submarine officers and men THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 8i in this way, and when in May a new Government was formed in England the plan wa3 given up. This new Government was a " coalition Government," that is to say that the chief positions in the Government were divided between Liberals and Conservatives, and so the Government had the services of the cleverest men in both parties. Mr. Balfour, the great Conservative statesman, became First Lord of the Admiralty, and he immediately gave up the policy of special treatment of the submarine prisoners. Soon after the Germans also gave up their special treatment of the British officers. It must be remembered that the British felt particularly angry against the German submarines because, besides sinking big ships, they also sank many trawlers, especially in the North Sea. Some of these may have been engaged in *' mine-sweeping," to free the seas from the mines which the Geimans still strewed when they got a chance. But most of them contained fishermen, who were brave enough to go out to fish in spite of the danger, and many of these were drowned. Sometimes as many as seventeen trawlers were sunk in one week. The sinking of the Liisitania on the 7th May caused even greater horror than the slaughter of the people of Lou vain in August. Before the Lusitania sailed, a warning was printed in the American newspapers telling Americans that the Germans meant to torpedo her. No one took any notice. People thought that the Germans were only boasting, and in any case that they would never be able to torpedo a fast- going vessel like the Lusitania. The ship was really a great floating hotel, with splendid baths and saloons and even gardens on board. She was one of the most luxurious ships ever built. There were 2160 people on board when she sailed on what was to be her last voyage. Even at the last moment some people, like the millionaire passenger Mr. A. Vander- bilt, received telegrams advising them not to sail. But again no notice was taken. The voyage was very good and 82 THE WAR, 1915 quick until the great ship sailed into the seas to the North of Ireland. Here was where the danger began, and it seems a great pity that the same high speed was not kept up, as in this case a torpedo would almost surely have missed her. Instead of this the ship slowed down a little, probably because the captain wished to arrive in port at Liverpool by daylight instead of at night, as he would have done if the same speed had been kept up. Many people wondered afterwards why the Lusitania did not change her course, and put into port at Glasgow, as the Transylvania^ another vessel which had been threatened, did a week or two later. In the middle of the day on the 7th March, while most of the passengers were at luncheon, the Lusitania suddenly received a shock. It was the threatened torpedo which had come after all. Not the slightest warning had been given, and even now many of the passengers did not think there was real danger. Almost immediately there was another shock, either through the explosion of machinery in the ship or through the firing of another torpedo. The crew began to get out the lifeboats, but the ship had been struck in a vital spot, and heeled over at a great angle with her bow in the water. It was difficult to launch the lifeboats under these circumstances, and there was not much time, for in twenty minutes from the time when the first shock had been felt the great ship sank. In that short time brave men had worked hard getting women and children into the boats which could be launched, and tying lifebelts on some of the others, but not much could be done. Several trawlers came up to pick up the people struggling in the water. Some were saved, but altogether 1300 people, chiefly women and children, were drowned. There were many distinguished people among the dead — actors, writers, and preachers. The news of the horrible deed travelled through the world, and people were angrier than ever against the Germans. There were many Americans on the Lusitania ^ and the President of the United States, Doctor Woodrow Wilson, asked for an THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 83 explanation. The answer was that the Ltisitania was carry- ing ammunition, but this was quite untrue. Some people hoped that America would be neutral no longer, and would join in the war on the side of the Allies. But America hates war, and was patient still in spite of much irritation, and almost insult, from Germany since the beginning of the war. President Wilson himself is a great lover of peace, but there were signs at the end of May that even his patience was almost at an end, and in the second week in June Mr. Bryan, the Secretary of State, resigned because he thought that a note sent to Germany by the President would probably bring about war. Meanwhile another neutral state, Italy, had joined in the war on the side of the Allies. It will be remembered that Italy was a member of the " Triple Alliance,'* and, if Germany had been waging a just war, Italy ought to, and would, have fought on her side. But when Germany began a war of aggression Italy did not feel bound to help her. The Italian people had never been really in favour of the Triple Alliance, and from the beginning of the war the nation was in favour of the Allies, and anxious to join in the war on their side. The Italians have always hated the Austrians, who for hundreds of years ruled a great part of Northern Italy as though it was their own. Even now large districts to the north and east of Italy, which are really Italian, are ruled by the Austrians. The Italian people were anxious to join in the war and win these back. They were anxious to join in, too, not only because they hated the Austrians, but because they really sympathized with the Allies in fighting against such a cruel and unfair enemy as Germany had shown herself to be. I'he sinking of the Ltisitania made the Italian people as indignant as even the British could be. The great meetings which had been held all over Italy since the beginning of the war, in which the speakers and the crowds declared that Italy should join in the war, grew larger and more numerous. The Government, which 84 THE WAR, 191 5 had been in favour of peace, and had kept it so long in spite of the wish of the people, resigned, and on the 23rd May Italy declared war on Austria. Everyone in Italy was enthusiastic. The King seemed strongly in favour of the war. The new Pope, Benedict XV, showed himself to be keenly patriotic, and sent his blessing to the army. His brother is an admiral in the Italian navy, and the Pope is thoroughly Italian. In the Italian colony in London, known sometimes as " Little Italy," there was great excitement. The men of military age crowded to the railway stations to take tickets for Italy and the front, and the Italian women said their *' Good-byes " bravely. So another nation had come to the help of the Allies, and the time of victory was brought nearer. When Italy joined in the war a new period began, and many people hoped that the terrible struggle was nearly over. But though people had suffered so much from the war, there was still the same determination to carry it through. Never before has the moral sense of the world been all on one side in any war. But by the middle of 191 5 there was no nation which would raise its voice to justify the cause of Germany. When, in May, the King gave the order that the names of the German Emperor and his allies should be struck off the roll of the Knights of the Order of the Garter, everyone felt that this was right. Such names had no place in any roll of honour. The flags of the degraded Knights were quietly removed from the Henry VII Chapel in West- minster Abbey, where they had hung. But even though people were weary of the war, they felt that it had roused the nations, as it were, to new life. Tales of heroism crowded in, of men who would not leave their guns, but fought to the death against fearful odds ; of airmen who, terribly wounded, insisted on fulfilling some important mission, only falling unconscious under the strain when their work was completed ; of the French priests, who had cheer- fully taken their place in the ranks of French soldiers, and THE WAR OF THE SUBMARINES 85 did their work as priests and soldiers too, advancing time after time under the heaviest fire to minister to the wounded and the dying. And amidst all the stories of German cruelty there came others of the greatest courage and kindness on the part of individual Germans. " Eyewitness " tells of a German officer at Givenchy, who stopped to dig out a wounded British officer who was partly buried under stones from a trench which had been blown up, and gave him brandy from his own flask. He was full in the firing line while he did this, and was, unfortunately, killed by a British bullet which hit him by chance. And even the annals of the British navy can show no finer story than that of the landing-party of the crew of the Emden. It will be remembered how, when the Emden was forced to surrender off Cocos Island, there were on shore forty-three men, who, instead of surrendering with the others, seized a schooner, the Ayesha^ and sailed off in her. The Ayesha was a leaky boat, and the pumps had to be worked constantly, but the undaunted crew sailed off in her to Padang, 830 miles away on the coast of Sumatra, where she laid in stores and then sailed off across the Indian Ocean for Arabia, meaning to join on to the Turkish allies of Germany. They arrived on the Red Sea coast near Hodeida on the 27th March, and no one can deny that they had performed a wonderful feat of daring and skill. In the splendid deeds of heroism which the war has brought forth, and in the hope of a lasting peace which the war shall bring, lies the only consolation for the sacrifice of so many brave and strong men and for the sorrow of so many women and children. A French officer, writing his last letter home as he lay dying, told how, when he became conscious after being wounded, he found a Scottish officer and a German soldier both wounded, trying to bind up his wounds. As all three lay dying, they talked of the old days before the war and 86 THE WAR, 1915 of those they had left at home, and the Frenchman, as he watched the others, wondered " why they had fought each other at all." Then he thought of " the Tricolour of France and all that France had done for liberty." And then he realized what they were fighting for. " He " (the German) " was dying in vain, while the Britisher and myself by our deaths would probably contribute something towards the cause of civilization and peace." PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. iH 't'- cy % :^lW^ .^^ -5^ V . < * o . ''>^ » ^- -^-^ •^y^t- 4^ ^* -j^fp; ^'s ' ^^ ^ -S^ <• o <> o^ » " * ■■^,x^ ^0 '=^^ V ^ ^s^if^.^ ^. ..^ .^^^%'. :^^' ''^. C ^^V. o^.-J^ '■{/' K':' \K~ * n^-r^^ A <^. «* -'Aj^. Vv>'>' a ^ ,0 w, \ ^ ^* -^ ''%^r^.° ^""^■ v ,r;::^^. q^ .0' <^^ ^^. 4 O^ " c ^ <^ W^ /\ '^^^s ^\ ''Ws /\ ^^'m 'i' ,; . o V ■i.' ^^ .-. ""-^ K^ Hq,. ^ .0 ^'^'^^ ••^^9^' -^^ .0- \V A. ,-^^ .V^ 'b V^ 0' K 4 o \ •^ iVi " ' -"^^ '~'o " >■ ^^'^' Qp Deacidilied using the Bookkeeper process. '"^^ " ' -^'^'' -^ ° " >^ ^ , Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: j^^y ofln*